The Things that God Hates 4: Hands that Shed Innocent Blood

Proverbs 6:16-17; Deuteronomy 19:9-10; Matthew 5:21-22; John 8:44; Luke 10:29-36.

This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on September 5, 2021.

Today, we are going to look at the third thing in the list of seven things that God hates.  The emphasis moves down to our hands.  There are many sins that we do with our hands.  However, the Spirit emphasizes hands that shed innocent blood.  This is a way of emphasizing murder versus capital punishment.

God hates hands that shed innocent blood

So, what is meant by innocent blood?  The point in this phrase is that they are not guilty of anything that deserves death at the hands of society.  It is not saying that they have no sin. 

Another point to be aware of is this.  It is easy to be confused between the laws of a country and the Law of God that is made clear in the Bible.  The taking of a life of someone who does not deserve it will always be hated by God, even when the society declares it legal.  Rome had no problem killing innocents in their Colosseum in order to keep the populace entertained and distracted.  Many places in the world have no problem killing innocents because they follow a different religion.  Even in these united States, we have no problem killing innocents in the womb because their presence is an inconvenience.  Of course, to assuage our conscience, we they are treated as not being a full person yet.  Sound familiar?  Such arguments were used by some to support slavery 200 years ago.

Don’t kid yourself.  When you stand before God, you will not be able to use the excuse that it was legal where you lived.  God’s Word stands above all nations, and this Republic, and holds us accountable to the truth about God and His Law.

Exodus 20:13 is the sixth commandment that God gave to Moses.  “You shall not murder.”  Yes, we are no longer under the Law of Moses.  Yet, murder was wrong before the Law of Moses (God held Cain accountable to his murder of Abel).  In the New Testament, we are reminded that murder is still wrong in the era of the Everlasting Covenant.  Why?  It is wrong because God still hates it, and it represents a rejection of the Truth of Christ.  The Law of Moses is filled with laws that were intended to teach symbolic truths such as the laws on sacrifice and the dietary laws.  However, the moral laws were not symbolic.  Early Christians understood that these things were still sin and God did not want people of any era participating in it.

It has become common place for our larger cities to see over a hundred murders a year, with places like Chicago leading the pack with over 1 murder a day.  Our systems do not keep track of the innocent who were murdered, and even if we did, they would not put the abortion numbers in it.  How enlightened we must be that we have legalized murder at the hands of some of the doctors in our land.  Around a million innocents a year have their blood shed in the united States of America.  Yes, the Taliban in Afghanistan are even now going door to door to kill collaborators and Christians.  This may seem repugnant to our delicate Western sensibilities, but God is just as repulsed by our clinical slaughter of babies in the womb.  You shall not shed the blood of the innocent!

Even though we are not under the Law of Moses, a study of it can help us to understand how God thinks on these matters.  For instance, take the cities of refuge talked about in Deuteronomy 19.  God is making provision for a person who accidentally kills another person (innocent blood).  He does this by having Israel set apart three cities to be a place of refuge for such a person.  He even tells them to add three more as they expand.  The point is not the system, but the intent that God had in setting it up.

Not all deaths are intentional.  Though it is bad to kill someone who doesn’t deserve it, it is also bad to kill the person who accidentally killed another.  By the way, the cities of refuge were never used as a sanctuary for murderers, law breakers.  The leaders of the city were to hear both sides of the event and any witnesses that were available.  If there was enough evidence to make it clear that the death was intentional, then they were to be handed over to their executioner.  There can be no sanctuary for a murderer, but the sanctuary of true repentance and faith in Jesus.  Our Republic has done a fairly good job in making a system that protects in the cases of manslaughter, though any system can be abused.

In Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus raises the bar for murder.  If God hates murder, then He hates the junk that goes on in a heart that leads to it.  No society can hold people accountable for the things that are listed in this passage: being angry at someone without a proper cause, calling someone an “idiot” (literally “empty-head”), and calling someone a fool (as an insult).  Yet, God will hold us accountable to these things.  He hates these things.  Jesus reminds us that to think and act in these ways towards another person is to be in danger of hell.  Like Jesus told the “Sons of Thunder,” you do not know what manner of spirit you are.  God is trying to save people from their sins, not execute them for them.  However, the rebellious will eventually be dealt with by Him.

A Christian doesn’t need to be against capital punishment, but they do need to have a heart that has given up anger, hatred, and despising others for their sins.  A Christian is a person who has repented of doing things that God hates, and who seeks to become like God, like Jesus, which raises this question. 

What image am I taking on?  When Cain killed Abel, 1 John 3:12 tells us that he was “of the wicked one.”  Cain had been warned by his Heavenly Father (God).  God was trying to help him overcome the temptation to sin, but Cain didn’t want to be like God.  He didn’t know it, but in refusing to become like God, he then became like someone else, the wicked one, aka the devil.  According to the Bible, Cain was not the first murderer.

John 8:44 tells us that the devil was a murderer “from the beginning.”  Who did he murder?  There may be more behind this verse than we know, since Jesus has knowledge that we do not and may be sending a message to the devil through it.  However, Genesis 3 lays out the classical act of talking someone into killing themselves.  We cannot blame our sin upon Satan, but his heart was the heart of a murderer when he tempted Eve to disobey God.  He is guilty of the death of innocent blood when he took advantage of their naivety.

I am either a child of God becoming more like Him each day, or I am a child of the devil, expressing one more novel way of becoming like the wicked one.  Thus, Jesus brought to the surface the real image that the religious leaders of his day had been taking on.  They didn’t believe that they were killers any more than our society today thinks that we are enlightened and righteous, more righteous than God Himself.  If Jesus were to step into my life, and I didn’t know it was him, would I hate him for revealing my sin?  Would I despise him and malign him to others behind his back?  Would I openly attack him?  Would I have the heart of a murderer towards him?  We duck these questions in this life because the people who may confront us are humans who are fallen too.  Lord, help us to be more aware of the image that we are taking on, and through repentance, keep near to God.

God loves hands that heal

Let’s take some time to focus on what God loves.  Instead of hands that shed innocent blood, we should have hands that help and heal others.  To show this, let’s look at the story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:29-36. 

The Good Samaritan had compassion upon an enemy.  The story is not ultimately about having compassion.  Most people are capable of compassion when they want to be.  However, those who were most likely to help this Jewish man along the road, a priest and a Levite, chose not to help.  We don’t know what their rationalizations look like.  Perhaps they speculated that it was a trick.  Maybe they just didn’t want to be inconvenienced or made late for the temple service.  For some reason, they both ignored the man’s dire situation.

Jesus makes the hero of the story a person that Jews despised, a Samaritan.  To be fair, there was much despising coming from the direction of the Samaritans also.  This “half-breed” follower of a religious cult was the one who stopped and had compassion on the dying Jewish man.  I know the story doesn’t exactly say the man is Jewish, but it is most likely since the man had gone “down from Jerusalem to Jericho.”  The people hearing the story that day would have understood him to be a Jew that was helped by a Samaritan.  This would be like a BLM protester finding a wounded cop and helping him, or the reverse, a cop finding a wounded BLM protester and helping him.

Just because someone is my enemy doesn’t mean that I should desire their death.  The good Samaritan is good because he did what God would do.  He did all he could do to save the dying person.  He had compassion.  The reason I said this isn’t about compassion is because it is ultimately about who we are imaging in our actions.  Many priests and Levites in Jerusalem of the days of Jesus lacked far more than compassion.  They lacked the image of God.

We are told some very practical things that the Samaritan did to help the man.  He treated his wounds with the equivalent of antiseptic and salve.  He bandaged the wounds.  He then took the man to a safe place where he would not be harmed further, and where he could recuperate.  This couldn’t guarantee that the man would live, but it would give him the best chance.  The rest would be up to God.  He even paid for the cost of the man’s convalescence.  This man was more than a neighbor.  He was more than a good neighbor.  He was a godly neighbor, the hand of God to a man in need.

Think about it.  This Samaritan, if he was religious at all, would have had some twisted doctrines.  No self-respecting Jew of that day would want a Samaritan living by them.  Rather, they would want good Jewish neighbors, especially a Levite or a priest.  Maybe some of their blessing will land on me!  However, this Samaritan was the better neighbor of the three, a better lover of his neighbors.  His hands were not quick to shed blood, or to allow it to happen, but quite the opposite.  They were quick to help and to heal.

So, what can I do?  Notice that this story is not about a Samaritan who purposefully walked the road looking for robbed travelers.  It was a chance (or was it) meeting that gave him no time to prepare.  This is life.  Tests and choices that come our way that we were not expecting.

What can I do?  It starts with quick repentance when hard-heartedness surfaces in me.  I must develop the image of God within my life through choosing to help others, spiritually and physically.  The sad thing is that they won’t always want your help, and may even reject it.  How more like God can you get than that?  His help is spurned every day by hundreds of millions of people.

Friend, the spirit of this world is stirring us up against one another, to despise, and not love one another, but the Spirit of Christ is here this morning to teach us to love one another, even when it hurts.

Jesus Feeds 4,000 People

Mark 8:1-10.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, December 01, 2019.

In our story today, we are going to see another miraculous feeding of thousands of people with only a small amount of food.  Back in Mark 6, we saw the feeding of the 5,000 and now it happens again. 

The stories both follow the same pattern and emphasize the same points.  Thus, we will be revisiting them.  However, the second occurrence of this miracle serves to underline its importance to us.  God wants us to understand, to apprehend, that He really does have compassion on the multitudes of people who are on this planet, and even more so, for those who come to Him seeking help.

Jesus has compassion on the multitude

The story starts with Jesus explaining to his disciples that he has compassion for the crowd.  They had come out to a place in the country far from any close town.  They had also been there for three days listening to Jesus and seeing him heal many.

Now, when we think about Jesus having compassion upon the crowd, we should also make the connection that Jesus is the perfect representation of our Father in heaven.  His compassion is the compassion of the Father.  In fact, his very presence is part of the compassion of God.  It is easy to think of God as being distant and uncaring because He is not physically with us, but the Scriptures reveal that He is compassionate at the core of His being.

The word for “compassion” is meant to speak of a very deep-seated emotion of concern for the situation of another.  It is an aspect of the love of God.  God’s compassion, or concern for our situation, is demonstrated at first in a general way.  John 3:16 tells us that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (ESV).  God’s love sees mankind in its dire straits of sin and inability to fix things.  He is moved to do something about it and so, He sends His only son to save us.  Those who are against God and are enemies towards His purposes also benefit from His loving provision of resources both in material matters (sun, earth, matter, etc.) and His offer of spiritual forgiveness.

Yet, in our story, we have a very specific compassion of God upon a very specific group of people, upon those who were hungry for him and what he was doing.  Jesus was a novelty, but he also spoke and acted on behalf of God.  The people knew this and were drawn to him.  On the other hand, the religious authorities were already rejecting Jesus.  Many times, the common people have far more sense (common sense) than the educated elite.  Yet, their common sense is not without error, and it is not enough to save them.  They must learn to put their faith in Jesus regardless of what happens.

Perhaps you are reading this today, a recipient of the general love, grace, and compassion of God, and yet you have a very specific need.  Can you believe that Jesus sees your need and looks upon you with compassion?  Even when we are wrestling with our faith and our ability to follow him, even then, he has compassion upon us.  Remember the disciple Peter.  Don’t fall into the trap of cynically believing that he loves the world, but doesn’t care at all about you specifically.  The truth is that God loves you and has compassion on your situation.

It is one thing to be moved by the plight of the people, and quite another to have the wherewithal to do something about it.  In this story we see the limitations of the compassion of people.  The disciples of Jesus do not borrow the lunch of a little boy this time.  They have 7 loaves of bread and two small fish.  This is not enough to feed the disciples, much less thousands of people.  They are also in a remote place in which there is no food to buy.  Lastly, it is highly unlikely that they have enough dough to buy bread even if they could.  As humans, we are often bumping up against our limitations, and it is easy to see the limitations themselves as a kind of evil.  "I could do something for God if only I had more of (fill in the blank here)!"  God is constantly calling us to things that are more than we can do in and of ourselves.  This is not a bad thing.  The whole transhumanist movement is built off of the idea that our limitations are inherently bad.  Yet, there is a wisdom of God in our weakness.  It is a sad and lonely road that we head down when we try to make ourselves gods through technology.  It is a never-ending sacrifice of your true self for the want of something that you can never be. 

Our limitations teach us to trust and look to God to provide what we lack.  It is not a cop-out where we fail to use our gifts and work hard.  Rather, it is a strong confidence that, if I do my best with what I have, I can trust God to supply what I lack.  It gives us peace to know that God does not expect us to take His place.

God’s compassion and provision is unlimited, but ours is not.  Yet, God has a way of blessing us when we step out and do what He has told us to do.  It doesn’t always come in a way that looks supernatural, but it truly does come from a supernatural source.  Our church has had an example of this during the fundraising of our Thanksgiving Compassion Ministry.  Every year, we try to bless as many families as we can with the ability to have a full Thanksgiving meal as well as extra groceries on top of that.  We are totally dependent upon people donating each year.  This year we had several behind the scenes donations that were quite large and had not happened in the past.  We also had a church member who pulled together a Singspiration night that raised about $600 for the ministry and also had not happened in the past.  When you step out and do what you can, God’s help comes to us through whatever means He chooses to use.  We can take peace in knowing this truth. 

If you remember the famous Serenity Prayer, you see the same wisdom behind it.  May God give us the courage to change or do the things that we can, be at peace with the things that we can’t do or change, and have the wisdom to know that He knows what we lack.

Before we look at the miracle, we are told that Jesus gives thanks for the bread (vs. 6) and blesses it (vs. 7).  Here our Lord models the proper attitude for us.  We too easily fall into the habit of despising the smallness of what we have, instead of being thankful for it.  This despising has a way of bringing a kind of curse upon the little that we do have.  It will never be enough because my heart is “two sizes too small.”  Jesus does not look down on the 7 loaves and complain against God that they are in a deserted place without very much food.  Instead, Jesus sees the bread for what it is.  It is a good thing and something for which they should be thankful to God.  Thankfulness is about recognizing good, regardless the size, and being grateful to God for it.

So, what does it mean to bless the food?  There are two aspects to this.  On one hand we are asking God to help the food to meet the need within us, to strengthen, and to nurture us.  However, we are also blessing God for providing it.  It is just another form of being thankful.  I am thankful for this food and I bless you, Father God, for being the kind of God who would provide such things for His children!  We focus too much of our time on trying to get God to bless us and not enough on trying to bless Him.  Yes, you can bless the Creator of the universe.  Let’s resist the tendency to have a grinchy heart. Let's ask the Lord to increase our ability to be thankful, and bless Him for His provision, even in the face of apparent lack.  I can be at peace because He has promised to take care of me.

Another miraculous feeding happens

Jesus has the people sit down in groups and then has the disciples serve the food to them.  How the miracle occurs is not explained exactly.  There just continues to be more to pass on to the next person until we are told that the people ate and were filled.  This is an important theme within the gospels.  Those that come to God will be filled.  He is the source of all satisfaction and fulfillment in this life.  Any other source will leave us hungry and empty, but only God can truly satisfy.

In this story, the miracle is in the need for natural food in order to deal with natural hunger.  However, Jesus continually tells us that there is a more important hunger and a more important bread that we need, that is the hunger for the righteousness of God.  Matthew 5:6 says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled.” (NKJV).  I have asked this before and I will ask it again.  What am I hungry for?  Our flesh hungers for all manner of things that can never truly satisfy us.  Many pursue the tastes, sights, sounds, pleasures, and the experiences of this life, but they always leave you needing more.  There is not anything necesarily wrong with them.  They were created to be limited just as you are limited.  However, humans were not designed to be ultimately fulfilled by the limited things of this world.  We were designed to be filled with God Himself.  We are made to be a person that He can dwell within and satisfy the very depths of our heart and soul.  May God help us to hunger for things that are greater than the newest trinkets of this age.  May God help us to hunger for Him and for His righteousness.  I do not say this as if God could care less about our material needs.  This story begs to differ.  He does!  Yet, we must never be content for the natural bread and not use the strength from it to pursue the Bread from Heaven.

We are told that there are 7 baskets leftover.  The word for basket in this account is different from the one in Mark 6.  This is a larger basket that a person could sit in.  What is the significance?  Clearly, God can supply more than we need.  Yet, 7 is a number that connotes complete and full provision.  It emphasizes that God’s provision is a complete provision that often overflows.  In this case, the number of the crowd is 4,000 men.  Matthew’s account tells us that there were also some women and children there.  Jesus sends them all home with full bellies, but hopefully with hearts that are full of the Spirit of God also.

Let me end with noting that there is some skepticism concerning this account.  Some think that it is just a retelling of the same event of Mark 6, but with the details wrong.  That could be plausible if the Gospels did not agree about the story.  However, the Gospels are very clear.  All of them have the feeding of the 5,000 and the number is the same in each.  Mark and Matthew both agree that there was a second event, but with 4,000 men.  Their timelines leading up to the event agree, and the details that differ from the feeding of the 5,000 also agree.  These facts make it highly unlikely that both Matthew and Mark accidentally record a second erroneous telling of the event (especially since Matthew would have been an eye-witness).

The best argument of the skeptics is that the disciples seem to have no clue that Jesus could do the same thing again.  Surely, if Jesus had done this before then they would mention it this time.  Right?  The problem with this argument is that in the text itself (see verses 17 and 18), Jesus himself berates them for being slow of understanding and not remembering what he had done before.  The clincher, though, would be what Jesus says next in verses (19-20).  Jesus mentions the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000 as two distinct events, exactly as they are recorded in Matthew and Mark.

You could say that such skepticism comes from the same difficulty the disciples had.  It comes from a heart that is having trouble accepting the power of God.  This second event serves to remind the people that God is still their provider, just as He provided Manna in the desert with Moses.  Yet, it also serves to highlight and stress God’s intention towards us.  He not only intends to provide for us, He already has provided all that we could ever need.  We simply need to trust Him and step forth in faith!

Jesus Feeds 4,000 audio

Jesus Feeds 5,000 People

We will have the audio up Tuesday around noon.

Mark 6:30-44.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner, October 13, 2019.

We pick back up in the Gospel according to Mark where we left off.  As we look at this passage, we are going to recognize that God has ministry for us to do, but He also wants us to have rest.  It is not always easy to find that balance, and no one does it perfectly. 

In our story today, the time of rest for the disciples is interrupted by the crowds who want to see Jesus.

Jesus seeks rest for his disciples

Verses 30 through 33 focus on a reunion scene with Jesus and his disciples.  In verses 7-12 of this chapter, we were told that Jesus had sent them out in pairs to go through the towns of Israel.  They were to preach that people should repent because the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand.  They also were to cast out any evil spirits, and heal those who were sick.  We are not told how long they were gone, but here we have their return, and the excitement that they had as they tell their stories to Jesus.

Meanwhile there are other people who keep coming and going who want to interact with Jesus as well.  We are told that it was so hectic that the disciples didn’t even have time to eat.

At this point, Jesus recognizes that they need to go to a place where there aren’t any people, so that he can spend some time with The Twelve.  They then get in a boat and head towards an area that Jesus has in mind where they could fellowship and rest.

There is an interesting interplay surrounding the concept of rest in the Bible.  It is clear that we physically need rest every day, and that we also need rest in others ways: emotional rest, rest from activity (even if it is ministry), and especially spiritual rest.  In this case, they needed a physical break from ministry and attending to the needs of other people.  If we are always helping others, and never taking time to get alone with God, then we will come to a point of emotional and spiritual exhaustion.  We need rest and relationship with Jesus in order to recharge.  Even just sharing with Jesus and having him encourage them would be a powerful rest or refreshing of their souls.

Ask yourself, do I take time to be refreshed by Jesus?  If we will take the time to talk with Jesus about our day and ask his help, we will find a source of power that cannot come any other way.  In fact, this helps us to understand the fourth commandment of The Ten Commandments.  In the days of Moses, it was normal to work seven days a week.  However, God tells his people to take one day off from trying to make it by their own labor and trust God to bless the other six days of labor.  It is not intended to be a harsh command, but rather a blessing from God.  Part of resting is being able to trust that God will take care of things if I take a break.  Isn’t that amazing?  The universe won’t fall apart if I take a break.  The Gospel won’t fail if I take a break. 

Yet, there is a caveat.  Our flesh can come to love taking a break.  Just as a good rest can turn into laziness and lethargy, so we can be lazy about the work of God in our lives.  We can be spiritually sleeping when it is time to work.  This is where we need to be in tune with the Holy Spirit.  If He is moving then we need to be moving.  Moreover, if He is telling us to stand still then we should do so even if there are other people telling us to move.

The crowds see Jesus and his disciples leaving and figure out where they are headed.  We are told that they ran by foot around the lake to go where they believed Jesus and the disciples were going.  No doubt, they were spreading the word as they went.  Thus, by the boat arrives, there is quite a large crowd awaiting Jesus.

At this point, it would be easy to see crowds as a bad thing.  However, these people are just desperate people who sense in Jesus something that can help them.  The group is mixed with many who just want a miracle, some who want to see the man who may be the Messiah, and others who are working as spies for the Pharisees.  Remember that the crowd is always a mixed bag, and therefore it can be a good thing or a bad thing.  The people within the crowd are not thinking about the disciples need of rest.  They are only thinking about their own desire for Jesus.

Jesus has compassion on the crowds

In our flesh, we would probably disperse the crowds with some choice words, but we are told that Jesus was moved with compassion for them.  He saw them like one who sees sheep who have no shepherd.  Their religious leaders were not feeding them the truth and the spiritual food that God had supplied.  Instead, they were being abused and used as a means to an end.  Sheep without a shepherd would have all kinds of wounds and diseases from all the harassing predators.

Do you believe that God’s heart is moved with compassion when he looks upon the crowds of this world?  Sure, crowds can be capable of quite evil things.  It was a crowd that day that chanted, “Crucify him!”  Even the mobs of rioting youth, that we see in our cities, are only lost people who are hopeless in a world that sees them as a means to an end.  I do not want to romanticize the crowd in any way.  It can be a dangerous tool in the hands of evil people and the devil.  Yet, it is filled with people who don’t know their right hand from their left spiritually.  Otherwise, why would they be standing in a crowd?  May we first understand God’s compassion for us, so that we can then see His compassion for others, not because they are good or even doing good, but because often they are just sheep without a good shepherd.

We are told that Jesus takes time to teach them many things.  Probably it was something like the Sermon on the Mount.  We are not told of any healing, but that may only be due to their location in a remote place.  Sick people are not often able to travel to remote places.  However, the teaching of Christ is far more important than the healing of Christ.  A person may be healed and yet never learn from Christ what they need for spiritual life.  Make sure in your own life that you are not failing the accusation that Satan made against Job.  He accused Job of only serving God because God blessed him materially and protected him. 

At some point, the disciples recognize that they should send the people away, so that they will have enough time to go into the villages around there in order to find food for the night.  Yet, Jesus tells the disciples to give the people something to eat.  Believe it or not, God does care about your material needs.  He does supply for us both physically and spiritually.  Our problem is that we often neglect the spiritual in pursuit of material things, and this highlights the folly of our understanding.  It is better to lack material things and have God then to have material things and yet lack God.  Without God, no amount of provisions and possessions can satisfy and protect us.  However, with God, I can be destitute in the desert and still be filled by His provision.  Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Jesus miraculously feeds the people

It is clear that Jesus has decided to do a miracle.  Just as Israel wandered in the desert and God miraculously fed them with Manna, so Jesus would miraculously provide bread for multitudes in a deserted place.  Yet, he does so by asking his disciples to feed the people, knowing full well that this is beyond their ability.

The disciples complain that the request is unreasonable.  Do you expect us to go into the villages and buy up food for everybody?  Now, a denarion was equivalent to a day’s wage for the average laborer.  So, 200 denarii would be just over half a year’s income.  Most likely they were not carrying 200 denarii along with them.  Their point is that Jesus is asking them to do something that is ludicrous.  Have you ever felt yourself in this place?

Jesus then tells the disciples to check their inventory of food items.  They only have 5 loaves of bread and 2 small fish.  Instead of saying, “Wow, that is not nearly enough!” Jesus moves forward like they are going to feed all of these people with this small amount.  The people are instructed to sit down in groups to make it easier to serve and thus we are told that there were groups of 50 and groups of 100. 

Have you ever neglected to serve others for God because you could only see what you were lacking?  Yet, Jesus instructs them to take the five loaves and 2 fish and proceed to feed the multitude.  What is the worst that can happen here?  They would feed a couple of people and there would be no more food.  Why not just step out in faith and obey the Lord?

Now, the point of this story is not about how we can get a miracle when we want.  Rather, it is about how to change your mindset from one that can only see what you can’t do to one that is faithful to respond to the Lord with what little you have.

Before they serve, Jesus takes the bread and the fish, and he blesses them.  This is clearly a prayer of blessing over the food, which most likely involves thanks to God for His provision.  This is important because it shows to the disciples and to the crowd just who actually be serving this crowd of people.  Without the blessing of God, the disciples and their small amount of food are not at all enough, but with God it is enough.  Yes, it will be the hands and feet of the disciples that bring the food to the people, but it is God who will be providing the increase and the blessing.

Now, the blessing is not solely about the amount.  It is even more about the strength that we gain from it.  What will I do with this strength that God has given me?  Will I use it to do the works of God, or will I use it for my own fleshly ends?  As we eat the bread of heaven, we should then use that strength for the purposes of God and not just for ourselves.  The disciples probably felt pretty sheepish (pun intended) as Jesus broke the food into pieces and gave it to them to hand out.

Yet, as they obeyed, God supernaturally added to what they lacked.  The mechanics of how God supplied so much food from such little amount is not explained, most likely because no one knew how it happened.  It just did!  As one person received and passed on to the other, there continued to be more to pass on.  The same God who can form man from the dust of the earth and breathe the breath of life into him is able to cause bread and fish to appear as well. 

We are told two things to help us see the magnitude of this miracle.  First, there are actually 12 baskets of leftovers when they are done.  There is probably 12 because Jesus is reminding the tribes of Israel that God has not forgotten them.  There shouldn’t even have been enough to feed The Twelve, much less the crowds.

Second, we are told that there were about 5,000 men in the crowd.  This was a typical way of counting crowds in those days.  This means with women and children there were more than that.  Now, we get a sense of what the disciples were thinking as they approached the crowds with the little food that they had.

Jesus is called the bread of heaven who is sent down from heaven to feed the souls of men.  Here the people are miraculously fed natural bread and natural fish, but the true needs of the people are much deeper and much greater than this.  It would be a tragedy to feed people’s bellies and yet leave them destitute of the truth of salvation.  Jesus cared for both.  We must learn to care for people’s natural needs, but not lose sight of their spiritual needs, and our spiritual needs.  We must quit looking at what little we have and simply pray this prayer.  “Lord, bless this little that I have so that it may accomplish the work that you intend it to do.”  May we learn to quickly say, “Yes!” to our Lord’s command to serve (even when we are tired), and trust Him to provide the increase.  Do you believe that little is much when God is in it?

You might be interested in meditating on the lyrics of the old song found here: https://hymnary.org/text/in_the_harvest_field_now_ripened.

Jesus Feeds audio

Touching the Untouchable

Mark 1:40-45.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on March 10, 2019.

Today’s passage deals with a man who has leprosy.  In the Bible leprosy can be connected to a similar disease today called Hansen’s Disease.  However, it is clear that the Bible uses this term for far more than what would be considered Hansen’s Disease.  It was more of an umbrella term that was used to describe a range of skin problems, and even molds and mildew on stone or wood.  The man in our story appears to have a skin problem.  How bad his case is and how long he has had it we do not know.  This much we do know.  In the ancient world, the only answer for leprosy was a miracle.  Short of a miracle, a person was doomed to a life of being ostracized from society.  Lepers had to live outside and away from the dwelling places of the uninfected and they had to warn people if they approached.

This in and of itself would be bad enough, but then we must add the human element.  Humans added to the difficulty of lepers by showing little to no compassion.  Self-preservation was the order of the day and it was often laced with a derogatory hostility.  They were often seen as deserving of a punishment from God.  It is true that the Bible records some situations where a person who was rebelling against God came down with leprosy as a punishment.  However, this does not mean that every case is the result of judgment.  In general sin is in the world because humanity is fallen.  It is a result of the general sinful condition of mankind.  Though God can direct disease as a primary force, He typically allows proximity, DNA, and chance take its course.  Though we may wish God would protect everyone, or at least children and the helpless, etc., He has a plan to make us like Him.  If we are protected from the results of our fallen nature then we will never grow to become like Him.  The first reaction of Christians to disease should be the same compassion that we see in Jesus in this passage and the attempt to do for them what we can, both physically and spiritually.

An Untouchable approaches Jesus

The event begins in verse 40 and happens somewhere outside of a city because none is mentioned and lepers were very limited in where they could go.  In Matthew this same story is recorded right after the sermon on the mount, which happens near Jerusalem on the Mt. of Olives.  Therefore, it is likely that Jesus is outside Jerusalem, but we cannot know for sure.

People who had contracted leprosy were supposed to keep their distance and shout “Unclean! Unclean!” as a warning to people.  However, this man knows the reputation of Jesus as a healer and breaks protocol.

He kneels down and implores Jesus to heal him.  Now, kneeling for a person with leprosy can be a dangerous thing.  These diseases typically are caused by bacteria that attack the nerve endings and work their way to the core of the central nervous system.  The lack of feeling is as much responsible for their wounds as any cellular deterioration.  Yet, this is a desperate man.  He pleads with Jesus for help. 

If leprosy symbolizes sin then we should recognize that this man’s knowledge of his own condition, his own helplessness, and just who could help him, is symbolic of the answer to sin.  Only God could help this man wracked by the ravages of a disease.  Only Jesus had given him the hope that something could be done about his condition.  The same is true for us and our own sinful condition.  Without Jesus, we are at the mercy of sin and our selfish flesh.  They drive a wedge between us and the relationships in our lives, making us numb to life, and eventually destroying all hope.  We cannot approach Jesus with proud demands, but if we approach in brokenness and humility, we will find Him gracious and willing to help us.

Let’s analyze the statement the man makes.  First, he states the conditional, “If you are willing.”  This is enlightening.  He knows that God can heal him, but up to this point it hasn’t happened.  When he hears about Jesus, he has hope again, but still doesn’t know if Jesus is anymore willing to heal him.  There are some today who answer this question by saying Jesus is always willing.  If you are sick and come to Jesus, you should always get healed.  If not, then there is something wrong with you not Jesus.  Let’s lay this larger issue aside for a second and recognize in this moment how critical that question is to an individual.  It is often the result of countless hours of beating yourself up with the hopelessness of your situation and the idea that God doesn’t care about you.  Jesus was probably the first time that this man felt any hope that it could happen, but it hinges on the willingness of Jesus.

The second part of his statement is this.  “You can make me clean.”  It states an unwavering belief (faith) that Jesus had the power to heal him.  Of this, he seems to have no doubt.  Now, we have no indication that Jesus has healed other lepers up to this point.  He is the first recorded in the gospels.  However, it is possible because of all the blanket statements that say that Jesus healed all who were brought to him (at a particular instance).  Regardless, he believes.

The word clean is used because biblically the person with leprosy was declared “unclean.”  This was a ceremonial declaration that they could not participate in any temple rituals, whether to offer sacrifice or whatever.  Also, those who were ritually clean could not touch them at risk of becoming ritually impure themselves (note: mere touch could only cause temporary uncleanness, but contracting the disease would create a permanent uncleanness without healing).  So, the use of the term has two meanings.  The man could not be declared clean by the priests unless he was first healed from the disease.  He wants Jesus to heal him so that he can then be declared clean. Once he is clean, he can take his part in the heritage of Israel and go to the temple for worship and sacrifice.  It would open the door of access for him. 

The same is true for us today.  Without Christ, we are still in our sins and shut out from God’s heavenly temple.  Only Jesus can clean us from our sins.  However, even more than that, only Jesus can restore us to a position in which we can participate in the heritage that God has for His people today, that heritage that will take us into eternity, and the new heavens and the new earth.  Christ has not come just to rid us of the bad, but also to restore us to that good thing that we have been missing in our life.  Fellowship with God the Father and the Power of the Holy Spirit enabling us to image the Father to this broken and lost world.

Jesus responds to him

So, let’s look at the response of Jesus to such an approach.  Does Jesus respond with fear and calling for the stoning of such brazen audacity and wanton disregard for scriptural protocol?  I am not exaggerating, because historically certain rabbis have gone on record of responding with such reactions towards those with leprosy.  Of course, Jesus does no such thing.  Verses 41-42 show us a powerful scene of compassion.  We must be careful of brushing over such moments in the Scripture too quickly.  We are told that Jesus is moved with compassion.  The word for compassion speaks of a very deep emotion that comes from the guts.  We often have compassion on people, but typically it is for those who are very close to us, or the compassion is not very deeply felt.  Here is a man who has no connection to Jesus other than to be a fellow Israelite.  Yet, Jesus is moved with deep emotion for this man and his condition.

Do you believe that God is deeply moved by compassion when He looks at the world and its bondage to sin?  We only need to look at the cross and see the suffering of Jesus in order to know that He is deeply touched by our sin.  He does care.  He hasn’t abandoned you.  Put your trust in Him and He will never fail you.  He won’t do everything you tell Him to do, but He will be faithful to you to the very end.

We also see that Jesus was not afraid to touch the man.  There is great significance in this touch because Jesus did not have to touch him in order to affect a healing.  He is powerful enough to just think it and it will happen.  On top of this a person with leprosy were basically like a dead person.  If you touched a person you would be ritually unclean, and even worse, you could contract the disease.  In the case of a dead person, someone from the family has to bury the body.  However, Jesus didn’t have to touch the leper and yet He does.  Put yourself in the sandals of this man.  No one had touched him for years and here is a powerful prophet touching you in the name of Father God.  It must have been powerful.

Here is a brain bender.  Is Jesus ritually impure when He touches the man?  He would be technically.  However, the guy is made clean by the touch.  So, shouldn’t that disqualify the touch as making Jesus unclean?  Of course, I am treating this a problem for priests who are trying to follow the Law of Moses.  It is clear that when the Holy One, the Clean One of God, touches a person, the impurity of the person does not affect Him, but His purity affects the impurity.  That is how powerful the life of Christ is.  For us as humans, we cannot conquer someone else’s disease with our own health.  We can only hope to fight off the disease that they may have and could still succumb to the disease, no matter how healthy we are.  With Christ, this is not so.  The power of Jesus disintegrates the bacteria in every cell that is ravaging this man.  Jesus shows the true purpose of the purity laws.  They are not about walling us off from each other and from God, but rather about turning our eyes towards and connecting with the only One who can truly make us clean!

The man is instantly healed

Jesus was willing to heal the man, O, happy Day!  How those words must have washed over the man.  We are told that the man is instantly healed, which is saying a lot for a disease that would have been ravaging his whole body.  There would not only be destruction of the invading bacteria, but also reconstruction of destroyed cellular tissue. What a powerful healing.  So, what happens next?

Jesus warns the man not to tell anyone.  Of course, the man is extremely excited.  Why would Jesus give such a command?  Doesn’t this run counter to our duty to tell the whole world about Jesus?  Jesus is trying to minister somewhat under the radar of the religious authorities.  He knows that if He “pokes the bear” too much and too quickly then their attempts to kill Him would begin too soon.  God had a particular timing and purpose for the ministry of Jesus.  It is now clear that He needed to minister for 3 ½ years before He was to be killed.

Of course, today we are not under such a command from Jesus, although people sometimes act as if they are.  Jesus continually told His disciples that His death and resurrection would be the turning point for them to go public, declaring Him as the Messiah and Savior of the world.

Jesus also tells him to go and show himself to the priest as a testimony to them.  This was the requirement of the Law of Moses for anyone cured of leprosy.  They had to present themselves to the priests and go through several protocols that would determine whether they were truly healed or not.  Can you imagine what it must have been like at the temple that day?  Keep in mind that it is highly doubtful that the priests had ever had to perform this ritual.  There was probably a frantic scrambling around of priests trying to figure out what to do.  Yet, all of this was to be a testimony to them.  God was moving and there was a God in Israel who was making lepers clean.  Who had ever heard of such a thing (only a couple of times in the Old Testament)?  It was very rare.  The greatest testimony to the world of the power of Jesus is your own life transformed from sin and cleansed to be like Jesus.  None of us are perfect, but with the power of the Holy Spirit, we can walk in truth and righteousness before the world, and yet, also be compassionate and life-giving.  We don’t have to fear anything, even incurable diseases.  Sure, some people reject the testimony, but some are shocked and believe.  Others may tuck it in the back of their mind and it comes to fruit later.  Regardless, may we be a true testimony of Jesus Christ.

Next, we see that the man didn’t listen to Jesus and tells everybody what He did.  Here we see that even a good thing can be a bad thing if it is not exercised in wisdom.  Thus, we must learn to trust the wisdom of Christ and His representatives, the Apostles, rather than our own mind.  He knows better than us.

I said earlier that they are most likely outside of Jerusalem.  Thus, it is most likely the city that He couldn’t openly enter.  The passage tells us that Jesus goes north to minister in the Galilee region again.

Here we have a story about our broken and rotten condition without God meeting the compassion of God in Jesus.  If you are a believer today then I encourage you to remember that you were such a spiritual leper, being ravaged by sin, before you met Jesus.  He had the compassion to touch you!  He loves you.  However, we must also see ourselves in the place of Jesus.  Ask Christ to build such a deep compassion in you for those who are broken around you, whether they deserve their situation or not.  Pray that you may have such an impact upon the lost.

If you are not a believer in Jesus, then I encourage you to search your heart and see your true condition with Jesus.  You are being ravaged by a spiritual disease of sin that has deeply infected you to the core.  It will isolate you from everyone that you love, and destroy your life one cell at a time, until you are completely destroyed.  However, Jesus loves you and wants to touch you too.  If you will only fall down before Him and ask for His healing touch.  Lord, Jesus heal me of all my sin and make me clean that I may take my place in the heritage that belongs to God’s people, instead of being shut out and excluded.

Untouchables audio