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You're listening to the Vice
Chancellor's Hour, a ministry of Radio ABC 993 FM on the campus
of African Bible University. I'm Jeremiah Pitts, a professor
and administrator here at the African Bible University in Uganda. The purpose of Vice Chancellor's
Hour is to provide biblical and theological teachings that are
an extension of the ministry of the university. Welcome back to another episode
of the Vice Chancellor's Hour. So glad to have you along for
this journey through the book of Mark. We're looking at Mark
because it's one of the Gospels, those four primary books which
direct themselves at the life and the work of Jesus's ministry
here on earth. And I hope you found it encouraging
and interesting. I certainly have. And each time
I go to these stories, I find more and more. Today we're in
Mark chapter 3, a relatively short passage. We're looking
at Mark 3 verses 6 to 19, and looking at a relatively short
passage, Mark chapter 3 verses 6 to 19. And I'm going to read
it for you, and then we'll learn about it hopefully together.
This is what it says. The Pharisees went out and immediately
held counsel with the Herodians against Him, how to destroy Him.
Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea, and a great crowd
followed, from Galilee, and Judea, and Jerusalem, and Edumea, and
from beyond the Jordan, and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the
great crowd heard all that He was doing, they came to Him,
and He told His disciples to have a boat ready for Him because
of the crowd, lest they crush Him. For He had healed many,
so that all who had diseases pressed around Him to touch Him.
And whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they fell down before
Him and cried out, You are the Son of God! And He strictly ordered
them not to make Him known. and he went up on a mountain,
and called to him those whom he desired. And they came to
him, and he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles,
so that they might be with him, and he might send them out to
preach, and have authority to cast out demons. He appointed
the twelve, Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter, James, the
son of Zebedee, and John, the brother of James, to whom He
gave the name Oraneges, that is, sons of thunder, Andrew,
and Philip, Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James,
the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas
Iscariot, who betrayed Him. So in this story, we see that
Jesus is doing the work, that even though the Pharisees and
the Herodians are against him, he has people coming to him from
basically everywhere. And from that, he selects a relatively
small group who are going to be his disciples that he himself
equips, and then they go out into the world. When I think
about this passage, it actually reminds me a little bit of a
story I heard not too long ago about a man who was in a concentration
camp. He's telling the story of himself.
He had suffered so much during his time in this concentration
camp. He had been abused, and he didn't
have enough food, and many people around him died. In fact, there
was good reason multiple times why he thought he also would
die. He endured unbelievable suffering. Towards the end of
that war, he had some people who came and they told him and
the other prisoners that if they would get into the trucks, that
they would take them to an aid station, that there was a neutral
party there who would provide them with food and with clothes,
all the things that he desperately, desperately needed. and he wanted
that opportunity but he remembered something back that he had left
and he returned for it when he came back he found they had left
without him and he was so very disappointed it was devastating
really crushing to have missed this chance to get more food
to get more clothing to be taken care of, and he was incredibly
disappointed to have missed the opportunity. It was only later
he found out that all of those who had gone with those men in
those trucks had all been killed. that the men who had come had
not come in fact to help them, but had come instead to kill
them so that they could not be evidence used against them, testimony
used against them later. The reason I think of that story
is because it is a powerful example of a principle we find here in
this passage, which is that not everyone who shows up is there
to help. Not everyone who shows up is
there to help. Jesus, in this passage, is surrounded
by a number of individuals and groups who come to him. And in
our humanity, we often think if we have lots of visitors,
lots of guests, lots of attenders, the powerful people, if the right
people come to see us, if the crowds come to see us, that we're
doing something well. But we see in this story that
not everyone who shows up is there to help. The first group
we see in Mark 3.6 is the Pharisees and the Herodians. You may remember
the Pharisees from our discussions of them before, But the Pharisees
are essentially a very popular holiness movement. They have
some things in their favor, some things which were good about
them, that the Scriptures also point out to us. Which is, they
did believe, for instance, in the reality of miracles, they
did believe in the Old Testament, and they did believe in following
the law of God. Their great problem was that
they added many other things to it. It was not that they wanted
to hold to what God actually told them, it was that they misunderstood,
misapplied, and misinterpreted what God had told them, and in
many cases added to it. You can go back and listen to
the previous episode at your own leisure, and you'll hear
how they misunderstood and misapplied the Sabbath, keeping the Lord's
Day. And because of that, they actually
oppressed other people, rather than finding it to be a joy and
rejoicing. And in fact, you would say they
didn't fulfill all the duties required of man. They didn't
help others. That's the Pharisees. And when
the Pharisees saw Jesus teaching, their response to that was that
they wanted to get rid of him. Herodians are a party of people
who supported Herod. And they only come up a few times
here because they weren't super popular. What we know about them
is that they joined forces with the Pharisees in order to test
Jesus. If you stick with me in this
series, eventually we'll get to Mark chapter 12, where the
Herodians appear, probably because of this time period here where
they're joining forces with the Pharisees, to test Jesus along
political lines. knowing fully well that there
was a tension among the people who lived in that region between
what they believed were their religious duties and their duties
to their civil authority, that is, whether or not they should
pay taxes to Caesar. They came to test Jesus along
those political lines, hoping to put him in a position where
he could be attacked and possibly he could be imprisoned or killed
as a result of his response. So, they're fully supporters
of the local government. The Pharisees, by contrast, typically
did not like their rulers. So, the Pharisees didn't care
for Herod very much. So, the Pharisees and the Herodians
are actually kind of natural enemies of each other. They normally
wouldn't work together. But what has brought them together,
what's aligned them together in their work, is they want to
be against Jesus. That's what has made them allies.
Imagine hearing someone tell the truth and perform miracles. You see it with your own eyes
and your response is, we have to get rid of this guy. But that's
exactly what's happened. What inspires these two groups
to work together is who Jesus is appears to be a threat to
them. What he does undermines their
credibility, precisely as it demonstrates his authority, his
credibility. So, they are conspiring against
Jesus because of what he was doing. And you are going to see
these two groups show up again in the book of Mark to test Jesus,
to try to catch Jesus, to try to put Jesus in a bad situation. Yes, they are showing up, but
they are not there to help. Perhaps a little less obviously
is the crowd of people who were mentioned in the first part of
the passage. We're told all the regions they came from, and you
might think of it as both North, South, East, and West. They came
from every part, every area around, pretty much. And it was because
Jesus' fame is spreading abroad. That is, it's going all over
the place and among different groups of people. But it says
that they came specifically to be healed. They came specifically
to be healed. Now I mention this not to say
that it's wrong to want to be healed, but instead to emphasize
exactly what it seems that Mark is emphasizing. Mark seems to
me to be emphasizing the fact that their emphasis, their focus,
is on the healing of Jesus. They want his healing. They want
that regardless of who he is. This is a very real problem in
the church today. There are individuals and there
are whole churches that are dedicated not to you understanding who
Jesus is, so that you could be a believer in Jesus, following
his teachings, understanding his ministry, and walking his
footsteps, so that you may worship him as he ought to be worshiped
and follow him as he ought to be followed. But instead, there
are whole groups and ministries of people whose entire focus
is on reaping the benefits they perceive are offered in Jesus
Christ. That is, they would be people
who would want the healing regardless of who Jesus is. They want Jesus
as a doctor, but they do not want Jesus as a Lord and Savior. Can you see the difference? Jesus
comes not only to help his people from their current physical predicaments,
the problems that arise in their regular lives, but he came to
be a savior of the world, to bring peace between God and man
to be a reconciler of ourselves, not just for this life, but for
all eternity. Imagine, if you will, that a
person wanted to have his hand be restored. Of course, that's
a good thing to want, but imagine having your hand restored for
a moment, but your soul suffering in hell forever because you wanted
Jesus to be your healer, but you didn't care if he was your
Savior. These people were so many and
so aggressive that they nearly crushed Jesus. They pressed to
get on to Him, to get close to Him, to touch Him, so that they
might be healed regardless of the fact that they might kill
Him. by their actions. These crushing
crowds are not there to help, but instead they are there for
their own reasons. Let us, if we crush and crowd
to the church, be there for the right reasons. Let us go, not
so that we can have big emotions, not so that we can have some
kind of healing, not so that we can see miracles, but because
Jesus is worthy of worship. It's one of the things that we're
told is to be sure that we do things in an orderly fashion. As Paul describes worship, he
describes an orderly type of worship, not one which is chaotic,
not one which is crushing and destructive. We should be careful
not to be a crushing crowd. The crowd showed up, but everyone
who shows up is not there to help. Thirdly, and this one you
will see in more detail at the end of the passage, is one of
the disciples. You may have noticed that in
the passage it describes Judas Iscariot, the last one who is
mentioned. Now, if you know much about Christianity,
you know that Judas Iscariot was a betrayer. Now, the other
disciples did not know that. Be sure you understand in your
own mind that it wasn't as though 11 of the disciples were looking
at Judas Iscariot every day, knowing that he was a betrayer.
They didn't know. But do you know who did know?
Jesus. Jesus was fully aware that Judas
Iscariot probably even was fooling himself in some ways, that he
was self-deceived. He doesn't seem to understand
that he was the betrayer when it was brought up. either. But
he is, he was, the betrayer of Jesus Christ. And in that way,
we don't know fully the motivations of Judas when he arrived, but
we know for sure he wasn't there to help, he was there ultimately
to betray. So you need to know that not
everyone who shows up is there to help, be discerning. Secondly,
God's timing is the right timing. God's timing is the right timing.
You may have noticed in the story that there are certain people
who are demon-possessed, and that those demons, when they
encounter Jesus, they recognize Jesus for who He is. This has
come up a few times as we've talked about demon possession
in the past. It will come up a few more times
in the future. It's an amazing thing really
to think about the fact that you might have these spiritual
beings, and while Jesus' real identity is not immediately seen
by everyone, it is seen by them. They know exactly who Jesus is
the people who came for healings, they came regardless of who Jesus
was, they just wanted the healings. But the mouthy demons, those
demons who could not help but say who Jesus was, well, they
knew exactly how to call him, what to say about him. But don't
be confused, we've talked about this before. They're not saying
it because they want to tell the truth or because they want
to be helpful, but instead because they want to be disruptive. These
demons are destructive and damaging and want to be disruptive. So their desire in calling him
the Son of God is to disrupt the timing of Jesus. Remember,
as we talked about it with the disobedient leper in a previous
episode, that Jesus had a timing of His revelation. He is revealing
Himself progressively and in His wisdom at the right time. This shouldn't be a surprise
to you, that's how the whole Bible has worked over time. God
has progressively revealed Himself to His people because in His
wisdom He knows the best and the right way. Do you know exactly
when Jesus reveals Himself? he reveals himself at the very
end of his life here on earth. So, when he fully reveals himself,
that is when they murder him. They use legal means, but it
is legal murder. That is precisely what it is.
So Jesus reveals himself, and that provokes the authorities
and the crowds and the religious leaders then to have him turned
over and crucified. Jesus knew exactly what would
happen. Remember, he tells the leper
not to reveal him, and the result of it would be people would crush
him, begging for healings, and lo and behold, what do we find
here? Crowds crushing just to be healed, not because of who
he is. But that's not the primary purpose of Jesus here on earth.
He is here to save us from our sins, from both its punishment,
but also its power. The penalty and the power of
sin. So, God's timing is the right
timing. He rebukes them because He has
a specific time in which He plans to be revealed. You will see
this as we go through the book of Mark, that He will be revealed
at the right time. Thirdly, God chooses His people. God chooses His people. Notice
that many, many, many people showed up, right? It's a huge
crowd and they're so large that it's quite likely that they could
have crushed Jesus and crushed His disciples. He actually pre-arranged
a method of escape if they were to grow so many that they crushed
Him. It is from that larger group
that we see that He selects His disciples. So from that larger
group, a huge group, he doesn't look across and say, yes, you
guys are all basically the same, but actually he selects a smaller
unit of people that he calls as his apostles from the whole
crowd, the great crowd that came to him. So, the purpose of this
is, as he appoints them, he is actually going to give them out
his authority to be with him, to be sent out by him, and to
cast out demons. He names them as his, and yes,
that even includes Judas Iscariot. Now, if you think about it, he's
the one who chooses, isn't he? Everybody shows up, but He chooses.
And in His wisdom, He chooses exactly the right people. He
chooses disciples that I think the world would not choose to
change the world. And if you were to think about
who would I pick who's going to be the most influential, have
the most power, I think most people would go to the top, wouldn't
they? I think they would say, well, who's the president? Who's
the king? Who's the prime minister? Who's
the billionaire? Who's the tech mogul? They would
name lots of people that they thought would be the most powerful.
You would not pick these 12 men. I'm just going to name a few.
Andrew, that first disciple, which I think you could catch
a previous episode that gets into more detail, he started
out by being the disciple of another man. He was a disciple
of John the Baptist before he was a disciple of Jesus, and
he doesn't immediately see Jesus exactly for who he is. It has
to be revealed to him by his own leader, his own teacher,
John the Baptist. Had he not been directed to Jesus
by someone else, he never would have gone himself. Simon Peter,
although he often says and does the right thing, is often very
self-assured at precisely the wrong times. Remember, he actually
disagrees with Jesus sometimes, he denies things that Jesus said
to him, he says they're not true, and the more important denial
is that at the end he denies Jesus and knowledge of Jesus
three times publicly. His job is proclamation. He was
sent out to proclaim, and then in Jesus's darkest moment, rather
than defending Jesus, he denies even knowing him. This is not
the person you would think of as the best possible leader.
James and John both mentioned in this passage. Often again
they say good and right things, but they also often are self-serving. One time they ask for fire to
be brought down on others, they ask if they can excommunicate
a group who are doing miracles in Jesus' name, who didn't come
through their processes, and they ask for more honor, more
power. They ask to be on the right hand
and the left hand of Jesus in Kingdom Come, and these are all
self-serving things for which they were rebuked. James and
John are thinking sometimes first and foremost of themselves and
not thinking of what Jesus is or who he would want them to
be. Thomas, who, yeah for sure, if
you listen to my episode on Thomas, you'll find is much better than
he is often reputed to be. But nevertheless, we see that
Thomas often doesn't really fully get what's going on. He says
so himself to Jesus. At the end of John, he says,
Jesus, we don't know what you're saying. We don't know how to
get there. please explain it to us." Because Jesus said, you
know the way. He said, Lord, we don't know the way. He hears
the testimony of his fellow disciples of a returned Jesus, and he says,
I'm going to have to see that for myself. In fact, he says,
I'm going to have to touch that for myself. Jesus says, hey,
come, I'm going to go to go see the burial of my friend. And
Thomas says, all right, well, if he's insisting on going, let's
go and die with him. Courage, for sure, but not exactly
what Jesus said was going to happen, certainly not full of
faith. One of the most surprising ones to me, we talked about Levi,
sometimes called Matthew, and you probably know, based on my
previous episode, he was a tax collector. That is, he worked
for who were considered the bad guys of his day, and he worked
in bad ways. He was a collaborator, if you
will. One of the members that we find here is Simon the Zealot,
and to be a zealot in those days was to be a member of a political
insurrectionist movement. They actually did robberies and
assassinations, and they hated collaborators. They hated people
like Matthew, like Levi. They were natural enemies. One
worked, you might say, for a corrupt government, and the other one
was attacking a corrupt government, even violently, passionately.
Jesus brings these two people who are enemies into His inner
circle to be His disciples, to follow Him and to work with Him.
And of course, you have Judas Iscariot. Judas Iscariot is a
liar, he's a traitor, he's a thief. and yet Jesus brings him knowingly
into his inner circle, always for his own purposes. In the
end, Judas can only fulfill what God has set about, and yet if
you understood who Judas was, you would never bring him into
your fold. These disciples, these are not
the people that men would choose for themselves to change the
world. And yet Jesus does precisely
that. And the way he does it is because
the power was never in the men themselves. The power was never
in the men themselves. If you look at them, you can
see clearly for yourselves that they are not worthy. They are
not worthy of the honor they were given. But in Christ Jesus,
they were empowered to do things they otherwise could not do.
And Jesus uses them to change the world. There's a lesson in
that for us, that it's God who chooses His people, and we, in
our vanity, should not believe for a moment that we choose ourselves.
He chooses us. If we have any power, it's because
He's given it to us. If we have any authority, it's
because the authority is all His, and He is the one who chooses
His people. Finally, we see in this that
Christ is sovereign. That word sovereign means that
he is the one who, like a king, rules over. Look at all the people
who are lined up against him. He has the Herodians who are
aligned with the political power where he finds himself, the Pharisees,
a very popular religious movement around him. They hate his guts
and they want to destroy him. There's a crushing crowd, so
the people who are there to see you are actually a big danger
to you. They might trample you, might
crush you. You have demons, these incredibly powerful spiritual
beings who are right there, ready to harm you. and they're certainly
not for you, they're against you in every way, and they have
incredible power. And you have Judas Iscariot,
you have the betrayer in your inner circle with you, one who
would to your face say that he wants to do good to the poor,
and behind your back he's stealing the money himself. To your face
he is saying and doing things that appear to be with you, but
behind your back he's conspiring with your enemies for your arrest
and ultimately they will kill you. These are massive, huge
dangers, aren't they? And yet Christ overcomes. Christ and Christ's mission cannot
be silenced and cannot be stopped. that all of the enemies of the
world who align themselves against Jesus Christ, every single one
of them will fail. If you look at the world around
you, you might despair. You might look and say, my neighbor
is not a Christian, my church is not faithful, my country is
not as Christian as it says it is, I see the push of these other
religions, other movements, and I'm so very, very concerned. But let me tell you something,
Christ overcomes the world. None can overpower Him. Remember,
when the powers of the world were aligned against him, when
the people around him abandoned him, when he suffered and died,
even death itself could not overcome his purposes. His kingdom will
never end. So that when you pray, Thy kingdom
come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, know this
for sure, We can see in Christ that He has the victory. In fact, He has secured it with
His life, with His death, with His resurrection, so that you
and I may be sure that kingdoms come and go, but our Christ and
His kingdom is forever. He is sovereign. I hope you are so encouraged
by this. You can love the Lord and the things of the Lord, knowing
full well that He has overcome. You've been listening to the
Vice Chancellor's Hour, a ministry of Radio ABC 993 FM, on the campus
of African Bible University. We hope this has been beneficial
to your Christian walk and understanding. If it has, you can support the
ministry of Radio ABC by going to AfricanBibleColleges.com and
clicking on the donate button. Don't forget to let them know
it's going to the Uganda station. If you have questions about this
or any other episode, please feel free to contact us at vchourofficial
at gmail.com. We're also available through
Instagram and Twitter as vchourofficial. We may answer your question on
a future episode. Until next time, may the peace
of God and the fellowship of God's people encourage your hearts.
The Crushing Crowds
Series Learning from Mark
Not every crowd shows up to help. In this episode, the VC discusses Jesus' concern for himself and his followers in light of his rising popularity.
| Sermon ID | 1014241350556164 |
| Duration | 27:01 |
| Date | |
| Category | Radio Broadcast |
| Bible Text | Mark 3:6-19 |
| Language | English |
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