I think I would be used to this by now. Okay. But I'm not. Mark chapter 14, we'll begin reading at verse 27 today. We'll go down to verse 31. And Jesus saith unto them, all ye shall be offended because of me this night. For it is written, I will smite the shepherd, the sheep shall be scattered. But after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee. But Peter said unto him, although all shall be offended, yet will not I. Jesus saith unto him, Verily I say unto thee, that this day, even in this night, before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. But he spake the more vehemently, If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise, likewise also said they all. Let's again go to the Lord in prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the time that we have, that we can come together to worship you. Lord, we thank you for the word that's before us. Lord, we thank you that today we serve a risen savior. Our father, we pray that you will take these things that you'd have for us. Lord, speak to us through your word. Apply them to our hearts and our lives. Your people be strengthened and edified. And Lord, if it's in your will, others would come to know you as their savior. Lord, we pray that you'll be pleased to add to our number, be with those who are sick. Lord, some who could not be here this morning, others who are here that aren't well, Lord, I pray for them. And I pray, our Father, that you'll forgive us of our sins and our shortcomings. For it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. So this was the reading of the word. The title of the sermon today is, All Ye Shall Be Offended. All ye shall be offended. Taken, of course, from the text there in verse 27, the words of our Lord, all ye shall be offended because of me this night. It's important to the context here as we look at this. Often when we think of someone being offended, we think of how we use the word, we think of someone being offended as being the dictionary definition. Someone who is feeling upset or annoyed or resentful. Like maybe you got offended because of the bad language that was in the movie that you watched last night. Maybe that was offensive to you, and it should have been. Maybe, maybe if I forgot to shake somebody's hand, you know, that would have offended you. Say, well, I was offended because the preacher didn't shake my hand this morning. Maybe, maybe you were offended because of something else. People get offended quite easily in our culture, it seems, and they talk about being offended. But is this what Jesus was talking about? Were they going to be offended in the way that we think of? And the answer is found in the context here. The answer is no. It's not the way that we would think of offended. English has changed, and in the process of time, there has been some changes within our own language. Even in a short period of time, this happens. Just to illustrate that, think of the opening song to the Flintstones. I'm sure most of us are familiar with the Flintstones. If you'll digress with me for just a moment as we kind of go from this text and think about our language, the opening song to the Flintstones says, When you're with the Flintstones, have a yabba-dabba-do time, a dabba-do time, we'll have a gay old time. When William Hanna and Joseph Berra introduced the Flintstones in 1960, nobody batted an eye to that theme song. There were no parents who, to use the word offend in our common vernacular here, there were no parents who were offended. There were no red flags that came up when that show was introduced. And indeed, Fred and Wilma and the rest of the characters, they all had regular relationships. They did not have any kind of strange or unusual kind of relationships there. Gay did not mean what we take it to mean in our day. In fact, gay in those days meant to be happy. And some of y'all remember those times. Maybe even you may have had a friend who had the first name of gay. But in our world, if you want to express your happiness, if you have a friend who's happy, you wouldn't call them gay. You're not going to say that I'm feeling pretty gay today because someone's going to misunderstand it. And indeed, it doesn't, it's not used that way anymore. And if English can change in a few decades, so it's happened over the course of a few hundred years. And so I say that to point out that here, this word offend does not mean what we would think it to mean. And indeed, in the King James, in the text here, it's not the fault of the translators. Just like it's not the fault of the cartoon that I mentioned a while ago, that kids watching reruns of the Flintstones might get the wrong idea when they hear the song. That no one can predict how a word is used in the future, but we have tools that we can use in order to know what's happening here. And as we dig into this text, we do a search and we find out that there are about eight different Greek words and five different Hebrew words behind the word offend in our Bible here. And in this particular case, it's the word scandalizo. We read the same word, we read it before a few weeks ago in Mark chapter nine. If you go back there in Mark chapter nine, during our Lord's sermon in Mark nine, beginning at verse 42. and going down to verse 48. Look at this and see all these places that offend is used here. It says, and whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea. And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off. It is better for thee to enter into life maimed than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched. Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off. It is better for thee to enter into, to enter halt into life. and then having two feet to be cast into hell, then the fire that never shall be quenched, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. And so he uses this word offend multiple times. He's not talking about that if your hand or your eye makes you annoyed, gets you upset, you resent it. He's talking about something else. What's he talking about? And according to Strong's Concordant 4624, being the number there, it is to trap, to trip up, to stumble, entice, to sin, apostasy, or displeasure. And so why does it say offend there? Well, again, Again, English has changed, and the cool thing is our friends across the pond over in England, they did a great job with the Oxford English Dictionary, and they have compiled the uses of English in so many ways, including some ways that we don't use anymore, and under a fin, In the Oxford English Dictionary, there is a meaning that's archaic that says, be caused or caused to stumble or make a false step, be shocked or shocked spiritually or morally. And so this is what he's talking about here. This is what Jesus is meaning. You shall be offended, you shall be made to stumble, you shall fall away, not to fall away in the sense of lose your salvation, not to stumble and fall in a sense of to be like Judas, who was never saved, but he says, all ye shall be offended, all ye shall be caused to stumble because of me this night. Jesus is warning his disciples that there's something that's going to happen. He's been telling them. The reason why I laid the groundwork here is so that we can understand what is happening here. Jesus is not going to do something that would offend them in the way that we might think of offense, but rather they're going to stumble. These men were Jewish men. They knew something about their Old Testament and in their understanding of things, the death of the Messiah was not quite there. They were ready for the kingdom. They were ready for the glories of the kingdom to be set up. And he says, all ye shall be offended. All ye shall be caused to stumble this night for it is written, I will smite the shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered. They were excited about what was happening in their world. And they had overlooked something important. The prophecies were there, but they weren't quite ready for it yet. They weren't quite ready for Jesus to die. Jesus tells them, he says, it is written, it's there. And what he's doing here is he's quoting from the Old Testament, in Zechariah chapter 13. You can go back there with me if you'd like. In Zechariah chapter 13, In verse seven. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellows, saith the Lord of hosts. Smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. I will turn mine hand upon the little ones. So as he quotes this text, he's applying that to himself. He's applying that to his own life. He's applying that to his own death. And so the prophet here is speaking of the Messiah as the shepherd of Israel. The flock then would be Israel, and the prediction is that Israel will be scattered. And the first stage of this, beloved, is that his immediate followers would scatter. Of course, you know, Peter's the one to speak up. He says, not me. But at the scene of the cross, we see that there was some scattering that happened. And we see that indeed, Peter was pretty bold to say he wouldn't do something that he did do. Zacharias said, smite the shepherd, and that indicates that Jesus would be put to death. But our Lord here in Mark chapter 14, he doesn't go into any deep exposition of that, but rather, and I believe the reason for this is he's already told them multiple times that he's going to die, more than once anyway, here in Mark's gospel. But what he does is rather than going in and clarifying that or giving some great exposition of that text, and what's he do? He goes on to mention his resurrection. There's a text in Mark chapter 14, Verse 27, and Jesus saith unto them, all ye shall be offended because of me this night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, the sheep shall be scattered, but after that I am risen, will go before you into Galilee. Notice he doesn't say, if everything goes well, I'll rise again. He doesn't add the words. If everything goes as planned, I'll meet you in Galilee. He knew the future. He knew the plan would succeed. And he says, after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee. Jesus would go ahead of them in Galilee. He would meet with them on the other side of the cross. He would stand before them alive. He would rise again. where I grew up in southern Ohio, there was a Shawnee tribal leader by the name of Tecumseh. Tecumseh told his followers that when he died, that if they would do such and such and do this and that, that he would rise again. Well, guess what? Tecumseh is still in his grave. He's not risen. And the same goes for all of the other spiritual leaders and prophets and men who said that they would come back. But Jesus, his tomb is empty. And you and I, we are, this week is Thanksgiving holiday. And I love Thanksgiving. You notice that in our culture, it seems like the stores go from Halloween straight to Christmas. There's a reason for that. The culture has drifted so far away from the truth of God's word The Bible says that neither were they thankful, Romans chapter one. The further that the culture drifts away from God, the more they're going to reject and the more they're going to leave out, the more that Thanksgiving is going to become secular. Who are they thankful to? It's a sad commentary on our country because the history of Thanksgiving is, I thought, I always heard was pretty much tied up with who we are as Americans, but we've drifted. We've drifted far away from where we were. I'm thankful for Thanksgiving Day, but even as Christians, let us remember that Thanksgiving Day is not to be just one day out of the year. We ought to be thankful all the time and for all things. And while we can make a list of all the things we're thankful At the top of the list, above all things, ought to be Jesus Christ. He was indeed smitten. He did die on the cross. He was buried, but three days later, he rose again, just like he said. And even though the disciples were there, and they did indeed stumble, they were offended, as the King James says here, and Jesus said that they would be, that they would be offended or they would stumble or they would fall away. However you wanna word it there. Then even though it did happen that way, he did still die for them and he met them on the other side. Which tells me, that he died for sinners like them, and if you and I were there with them, you and I would have been no better. We would have been offended. We would have stumbled. We would have fallen away. We would have been, and we'll get into Peter next week, Lord willing, but we'll be Like Peter. Arrogant. Thinking that we could, that we would never do that, and yet, before the rooster crowed twice, denied the Lord three times. And so, Because he died, his blood was shed for our sins. We're saved. And because he lives, we also live. We also have hope. We also, on this Thanksgiving holiday, as we think about preparing the turkey the things that we're thankful for, we know that our hope goes even beyond the grave, because there's more to life than this world. Indeed, he conquered death, hell, and the grave for his people. And he says, as he quoted that Old Testament prophet, All ye shall be offended because of me this night, for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, the sheep shall be scattered. But he didn't stop there. He said, but after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee. Praise God. He's the one who knew the beginning from the ending. He knows the ending from the beginning. And he did exactly what he had come to do. And all I can say to that is I'm thankful. And if you're here today and you're lost, put your faith and trust in Jesus. If he's all I had to be thankful for this year, that's more than I deserve. May God add the blessing to the preaching of his word.