[0:00] You can open with me now in your Bibles to Mark chapter 8. Mark chapter 8, as we continue in this sermon series through the Gospel according to Mark, we'll be reading the first 21 verses together.
[0:24] Mark 8, beginning in verse 1. During those days, another large crowd gathered. Since they had nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, I have compassion for these people.
[0:39] They have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way, because some of them have come a long distance. His disciples answered, But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?
[0:55] How many loaves do you have? Jesus asked. Seven, they replied. He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. When he had taken the seven loaves and given thanks, he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people, and they did so.
[1:10] They had a few small fish as well. He gave thanks for them also and told the disciples to distribute them. The people ate and were satisfied. Afterward, the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.
[1:24] About 4,000 men were present, and having sent them away, he got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Dalmanutha. The Pharisees came and began to question Jesus.
[1:36] To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. He sighed deeply and said, Why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign? I tell you the truth, no sign will be given to it.
[1:48] Then he left them, got back into the boat, and crossed to the other side. The disciples had forgotten to bring bread, except for one loaf that they had with them in the boat. Be careful, Jesus warned them.
[2:00] Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod. They discussed this with one another and said, It is because we have no bread. Aware of their discussion, Jesus asked them, Why are you talking about having no bread?
[2:12] Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don't you remember?
[2:23] When I broke the five loaves for the 5,000, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up? Twelve, they replied. And when I broke the seven loaves for the 4,000, how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up?
[2:37] They answered, Seven. He said to them, Do you still not understand? Parents, in teaching your children, have you ever had to teach them the same lesson more than once?
[2:56] Or maybe I should ask, have you ever not needed to teach the lesson more than once? As a disciple in the school of Jesus Christ, have you ever needed a lesson to be taught you more than once?
[3:13] Maybe twice or ten times or a hundred times? In our text today, we find the disciples of Jesus in a very similar test of faith as had happened months earlier when a large crowd in a remote place was needing food.
[3:31] And they clearly had not learned the lesson the first time and needed that lesson repeated in their lives. So just three points today, as we'll see the 12 disciples receive from their master teacher.
[3:44] First of all, a repeated lesson in faith. Secondly, a warning of spiritual danger. And third, a rebuke for their slowness to learn. So a repeated lesson in faith, verses 1 to 10.
[4:01] There are many parallels between the feeding of the 4,000 in our text today and the earlier feeding of the 5,000 in chapter 6. A few differences are the obvious difference in the size of the crowd, the amount of food started with, and the amount of leftovers gathered up.
[4:22] But perhaps a different, a bigger difference is the makeup of the crowd. The earlier crowd of 5,000 was chiefly a Jewish crowd.
[4:35] Remember, Jesus and his disciples took the boat across the Lake of Galilee and the Jews ran around some 10 hours to get there and to meet him there.
[4:46] It was mainly Jews. This time, Jesus is in the Gentile region of the Decapolis, those 10 Greek cities. And though some Jews were there as well, for sure the greater number in the crowd were Gentiles.
[5:03] And at least this is a crowd in which there is this mixed population of Jews and many Gentiles. And this fits the theme, the drum that Mark has been beating and pounding on since chapter 7.
[5:20] That a big change is at hand with the coming of Messiah Jesus, namely, the inclusion of the Gentiles into the people of God. In the Old Covenant, God chose the one nation of Israel as his people and he entered into a covenant with them alone.
[5:37] He left the rest of the Gentile nations to go their own way in their gross idolatry and immorality. The true religion, the religion from heaven was maintained and preserved within this one nation of Israel and often only by a remnant within Israel that remained true to the true religion.
[6:00] We saw that one of the ways to keep them from being perverted by the false religions of the Gentile nations was the food laws that God had established for them in the book of Leviticus.
[6:15] It kept them apart from the Gentiles and their moral and spiritual perversions. But by the time Mark wrote his gospel, some 25 years after Jesus had ascended into heaven, Mark had come to see that Jesus' teaching in Mark chapter 7 was pointing to the abolition of the Levitical food laws.
[6:40] He was abolishing them and as chapter 7 verse 19 says, was declaring all foods clean. So these food laws were part of that middle wall of partition to keep the Jews and Gentiles apart so as to preserve the true religion in Israel.
[6:59] But Ephesians 2 says that that middle wall of partition has been torn down by the cross of Christ. So Messiah's coming and his establishing of a new covenant with his people brought about this great change of the inclusion of the Gentiles into the covenant people of God.
[7:19] That the gospel and the blessings of Messiah were now for Gentiles as well as for Jews. Remember last week we saw the connection between the food laws and the inclusion of the Gentiles in Peter.
[7:35] He was going to go down and preach the gospel to who? To Cornelius, a Gentile. And so the vision had to do with eating unclean food and God said, don't call unclean what I call clean.
[7:46] And he was preparing him, don't call the Gentiles unclean anymore like we've had these unclean food laws that kept you apart. No, I'm declaring them clean.
[7:58] So we saw Jesus then going from having taught about the food laws being abolished. He then went north, remember, into the Gentile region of Tyre. And there was a Syrophoenician woman, a Gentile, and she begged Jesus to come and cast the demon out of her daughter.
[8:16] Jesus ignored her. Then he said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. And then he said, it's not right to take the children's food and to throw it to their dogs.
[8:29] She countered, okay then, if I'm an unclean Gentile dog, give me a dog's portion because even they get the crumbs that drop from the table of the children of Israel.
[8:41] And Jesus was so thrilled with her great faith that he says, have it then. Great is your faith. Your daughter is free from the demon.
[8:55] Then last week, we saw Jesus healing this deaf and mute man again in the Gentile region of the Decapolis. And now this week, he's feeding 4,000 men in the same Gentile region.
[9:08] And all of this, you see, is Mark's way of foreshadowing the great change that's coming in the New Covenant when the generous salvation blessings that were given to Israel will be given to the Gentiles as well who believe on Christ, the Jewish Messiah.
[9:31] In John 6, Jesus made clear that the lesson from the feeding of the 5,000 was that he was the bread from heaven which if anyone ate, they would live forever.
[9:41] that whoever believed on him as the bread of life would have everlasting life. And in that feeding of the 5,000, Jesus was offering himself an eternal life to his Jewish hearers.
[9:54] Now today, in feeding of the 4,000, he's offering himself an eternal life not only to the Jews, but he's offering the children's bread to the Gentiles as well.
[10:06] And this inclusion of the Gentiles in God's people had been God's eternal plan. Dozens of Old Testament prophecies foretold it. And our Lord even hinted at it with that Gentile Phoenician woman in chapter 7 of Mark, verse 27, when he responded to her request, first, let the children eat all they want.
[10:31] As if the first is to be followed by a second. First, let the Israelites, the children of Israel, eat. But pointing to a time when Gentiles as well will be invited to the table to eat the blessings of Messiah.
[10:49] At least a half dozen times in the New Testament, we hear that this gospel food was to be offered first to the Jews and then to the Gentiles. You remember that Romans 1, 16, Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.
[11:04] Because it's the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Gentiles.
[11:16] And you'll be my witnesses, he says to his disciples, and beginning here in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and then to the uttermost parts of the earth, Jerusalem first, to the Jews first.
[11:28] And so you find that theme throughout the New Testament. You see, Jesus was preparing Israel for this inclusion of the Gentiles to be heirs together with them, not second-class citizens in the covenant, heirs together of the same promises, Ephesians chapter 2 and 3.
[11:49] And that was not an easy pill for the Jews to swallow. Their prejudice against the Gentiles went deep. They were enemies. They had been enemies for centuries who had fought battles against them, who had killed their wives and children, who had held them in captivity for centuries.
[12:14] The Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Medes and the Persians. These were enemies of Israel. And then their pride, furthermore, did not want to give up their unique status of being the only nation belonging to the people of God.
[12:32] And so it was a hard pill to swallow that these Gentiles, our enemies, are going to be brought in on equal status with us in Christ. Yet we see that, yes, even these enemies of God's people are not beyond the love of Christ, not beyond His ability to save them and make them His own people just as much as any believing Jew.
[12:57] I ask you, what is your attitude to immoral enemies of the church today? Enemies in our culture wars.
[13:09] Are we loving and pitying them and moving to bring the gospel to them? They need to be saved as much as we. After all, what were we?
[13:21] We were enemies of God. For when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son.
[13:32] So freely, you've been given. Freely. Freely, you've received. Freely, give. So, it was another huge crowd this day that gathered in a remote place to see Jesus.
[13:45] And Jesus tells the twelve, I have compassion for these people. These Gentiles, I have compassion on them. They've already been with me three days listening to Him preach.
[13:58] And they have nothing to eat. If I send them home hungry, they'll collapse on the way because some of them have come a long distance. Jesus cares about their physical needs. And His disciples answered, But where in this remote place can anyone find bread enough to feed them?
[14:18] And you're saying like I'm saying, where have we heard that before? It would be back in chapter six with the crowd of five thousand. It's a repeated test of faith.
[14:32] And it appears they've not advanced in their faith since the last test in chapter six. They seem as helpless and flabbergasted as before as they assess the great need and their very limited resources.
[14:50] Ah, they failed again to factor in the infinite resources in the Son of God whom they had with them. Once again, they were forgetful of the difference that Jesus makes in every problem, in every shortage, in every need.
[15:08] Of course, we never do that, do we? We're always factoring in our infinite Savior who's for us, aren't we? Oh, no. Maybe we need some of these repeated tests of faith as well.
[15:22] That's what it was, a repeated test. And so once again, like before, Jesus asked, how many loaves do you have? Bring me what you have. And all blessed is the lesson.
[15:35] Seven, they replied. And then the miracle proceeds, much like the last time the people sit on the ground, Jesus takes the loaves and the few small fish and he prays and thanks the Lord for it, and then he broke it and he gave it to his disciples and they distributed it.
[15:50] And in the distribution to the 4,000, the miracle happens. Though they keep giving fish and bread, it never runs out. It just keeps multiplying.
[16:01] And then they all, when they had all eaten and were satisfied, the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of leftovers. So this was a repeated test of faith for little faith disciples who once again are given to see the infinite resources in Jesus.
[16:22] That he's more than enough to meet their need. There's leftovers. Well, having sent the crowd away, he immediately got into the boat with his disciples and went to the region of Delmanutha back on the western side of the Sea of Galilee, the Jewish side.
[16:43] And once again, the religious police of the Jews are waiting and ready to pounce. So that brings us to the second point, a warning of spiritual danger.
[16:55] Now we're going to see the danger first and then the warning will come later. Verse 11 says, the Pharisees came, they're now on the Jewish side, and the Pharisees came and began to question Jesus.
[17:08] A better translation would be began to argue and dispute with him. These were no honest questions. They were there to pick a battle with him. As he goes on, Mark goes on and says, to test him.
[17:21] They asked him for a sign from heaven. Their intent is clearly evil. What they're wanting to do is to discredit Jesus in the eyes of the people.
[17:32] Remember, they're jealous of him. And they want the people to think less of him if he refused to give them such a sign, which they thought for sure, he's not going to give us a sign.
[17:46] Why would they think that? Because earlier, they had asked him for a sign. Matthew chapter 12, verses 38 and following, they had asked him for a sign, a miraculous sign. And Jesus' answer was, a wicked and adulterous generation asked for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except for the sign of the prophet Jonah.
[18:09] That just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the big fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the belly of the earth, the heart of the earth.
[18:20] These Jews were always hankering after signs. We had it on Sunday evening a month ago.
[18:31] 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 22, Jews demand miraculous signs. And here they are, demanding a special sign from heaven that will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is this promised Messiah with divine power from heaven.
[18:48] You say, but hasn't he been doing just that? Yes, he has. Many, many miraculous signs proving his divine identity.
[19:01] The lame walking, the deaf hearing, the blind seeing. All of these miracles were proving, yes, he is that promised Messiah. He fulfills Isaiah 35's prophecy.
[19:13] But you know, the Pharisees just dismissed all those miraculous signs. Why? Because he did them not by heaven's power, but by Beelzebub's power, the prince of demons.
[19:24] So those don't count. Those don't measure up to our criteria of undeniable proof. What?
[19:35] Do you suppose that one more sign from heaven will make them believers and followers of Jesus Christ? Never. Never. Unbelief is never satisfied.
[19:48] There's never enough miraculous signs. They're always wanting more or of a different kind as here. And it's all just an excuse for their rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah when the real reason was their hatred of him in their hearts.
[20:07] We will not have this man to rule over us. You know, Jesus had already rejected this temptation of the devil back in the 40 days and 40 nights and the temptations in Matthew 4.
[20:23] The devil tempted him to make disciples by use of a spectacular sign. Do something like jumping off the high point of the temple and they will all follow you.
[20:34] And he rejected it out of hand and now he's being tempted again. Do something spectacular. So the Pharisee's request is met with a deep sigh and a flat denial.
[20:50] Remember last week we saw Jesus sigh when standing before the deaf and mute man and he sighs with grief and sorrow at all the pain and misery that has been brought into the world by Adam's fall into sin.
[21:05] Be open, he said. Now here he sighs deeply again and there may be an element of grief but there is definitely an element of frustration, agitation, anger even over the Pharisee's stubborn belief, their unbelief, their hardened hearts, their unwearying attacks and hostility.
[21:29] He knows what they're trying to do even as they pretend to honor him. And so verse 12, he sighed deeply and he said, why does this generation ask for a miraculous sign?
[21:42] I tell you the truth. It's like swearing an oath. I tell you the truth. No sign will be given it. And with that ringing in their ears, he left them, verse 13 said, got back in the boat and crossed to the other side of the lake.
[22:00] He's done with them. Nothing will convince them out of their hardened unbelief. And we've seen this before in Mark's gospel, haven't we? That sometimes Jesus leaves where he's not wanted.
[22:11] He's not wanted. Dear unconverted friends, beware of rejecting Jesus yet again. Has Jesus been convicting some of you of your sin and your need of a Savior?
[22:30] Has he been pricking your conscience? Has he been calling you, drawing you, pulling on you? Don't think he will always be doing that. He may never be nearer than he is now.
[22:46] Jesus leaves where he is not wanted. And there is a line where he does that. It's a serious judgment from Christ to simply leave you to yourself, just to leave you to your unbelieving hard heart.
[23:04] John 3, 36, whoever believes in the Son of God has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life for God's wrath remains on him. You say, oh, I'm not rejecting Jesus.
[23:20] I'm just not ready yet to receive him. Just not now. Oh, to put him off till tomorrow is just your polite way of rejecting him yet again today.
[23:32] Proverbs 29, 1, a man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy. Don't let another day go by rejecting Jesus.
[23:47] These Pharisees were left to their hardened hearts and soon we'll hear them crying, crucify him. Well, now comes the warning then of the spiritual danger.
[24:00] Jesus has seen and dealt with the spiritual danger of these Pharisees. Now he sounds the warning to his men as they're in the boat going to the other side.
[24:12] Be careful, verse 15. Be careful, Jesus warned them. Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod. Matthew's account has that he also said, watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
[24:27] So here are three groups mentioned. Pharisees and Sadducees were religious groups within Judaism, religious parties with some strong differences between them and yet here's this unreligious, wicked King Herod and his Herodian party, a political party.
[24:45] What did these all have in common? Well, they all hate Jesus. They're all hostile to Jesus and are together in their unbelief and rejection of him and they all hankered after signs.
[24:59] When Herod finally sees Jesus, he was hoping that Jesus would do some miraculous sign and Jesus would not do so and they all had their own false teachings.
[25:11] So the Pharisees were that religious hypocritical group pretending to be more holy than they really were. We meet them often in the Gospels. They leaned on their own righteousness, their own good deeds and their pedigree of being from Abraham's seed.
[25:27] They leaned on that to get them into heaven. It was good works religion. The Sadducees were a religious party and the Jews, they were the religious party of the chief priests.
[25:40] This was the, these men had clout. They had religious standing in the community and they were compromisers with the political powers of Rome who were ruling over them.
[25:50] They denied many biblical truths. They denied the resurrection. No, when you're dead, you're dead. There's no life after death.
[26:01] There's no heaven. There's no hell. And they denied the existence of angels and spirits. And then there was the Herodians. This was the political party that was trusting in their Herodian kings to bring better times for the Jews.
[26:14] Now we can be fooled into thinking that ideas and teachings are harmless things. Jesus says otherwise.
[26:28] That their teachings are like yeast that has the power to secretly penetrate the whole lump. So he warns his disciples against this very real spiritual danger to their souls of letting the prevailing teachings and ideas of the age to squeeze them into its mold.
[26:55] These ideas were like a poisonous gas in the air that they were breathing. They'd grown up under the teaching of the Pharisees. They were their trusted spiritual leaders and teachers in Israel.
[27:09] And they had been infected by them more than they may have realized. as we'll see in the next portion of chapter 8. They shared with the Pharisees the same earthly and political expectations of the Messiah.
[27:27] That he's come to save us from the Romans. Their danger then was imbibing the thoughts and beliefs and attitudes almost by osmosis just by living in the culture that they lived in.
[27:40] And so Jesus warns them against the yeast of the Pharisees Sadducees and Herodians. But as soon as Jesus said the word yeast they thought bread.
[27:54] Mark tells us why in verse 14. The disciples had forgotten to bring bread except for one loaf. These are just little loaves. One loaf that they had with them in the boat.
[28:06] So when Jesus warned them about yeast verse 16 says they're discussing with one another and said it's because we have no bread. And they conclude that Jesus is getting after them for having forgotten to bring bread.
[28:21] And they're all feeling a bit guilty for overlooking it. Maybe you can just hear them whispering in the boat to each other I thought you were bringing the bread James. Well Thomas brought it the last time I just thought he'd get it again.
[28:34] And they completely failed to understand the warning about the spiritual danger because their minds were going to physical bread. And so that brings us to the third point.
[28:46] A rebuke for their slowness to learn. Verses 14 to the end. In verse 17 we read aware of this discussion Jesus asked them why are you talking about having no bread?
[29:02] Do you still not see or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes but fail to see ears that fail to hear? And don't you remember?
[29:14] Quiz time men. Think. Think hard. When I broke the five loaves for the 5,000 how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up? Twelve they replied.
[29:26] And when I broke the seven loaves for the 4,000 how many basketfuls of pieces did you pick up? Seven. He said to them do you still not understand?
[29:42] Do you forget things from time to time? I know I do. Every day I forget things. Forgetting to bring bread in the boat with them was no big deal.
[29:55] But forgetting who was in the boat with them was a very big deal. And Jesus is calling them out for it. And that's why he rebukes them for their slowness to learn their slowness to believe.
[30:11] If I fed 5,000 men with five loaves and fed 4,000 men with seven loaves do you suppose I can feed us 13 on one loave?
[30:24] The rebuke was well deserved and for two reasons. First of all they failed to learn the lesson of the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000.
[30:39] Jesus expected them to be learning from these trials to trust him in whatever shortages and problems they had in their lives. They had seen months earlier his miracle of feeding the 5,000 yet here they were all out of sorts when facing 4,000 in similar situation needing food.
[31:00] Where can we ever get that much food in this remote place? And now even this little need of 13 men on one loaf seems to be bothering and upsetting them.
[31:11] It's because we didn't bring bread. Oh no. It's easy to be armchair critics of the disciples as we read the Gospels and see all their blunders.
[31:25] But have you ever been in a trial and you had no resources of your own to get out of the problem and in God's mercy and kindness he drew near and he came to your aid and he delivered you, he helped you.
[31:40] And then maybe a few months later, dare I say it, maybe the very next week you're in a very similar problem and you're all bent out of shape.
[31:53] Oh no. What am I going to do? I don't have any resources for this problem. Instead of calmly trusting the Lord who delivered you before, you're all a nervous rat, full of anxiety, fret, acting like he can't be counted on in this situation.
[32:17] Does the Lord not have multiple reasons to say to every one of us and I put myself first in line, do you still not understand John? Don't you understand?
[32:31] They had failed to connect the dots. They see this miracle, that miracle, but they failed to connect the dots between what they saw and the next problem in their life.
[32:42] It's like failing to connect the dots of what we read and hear preached here and we get to Wednesday and we've got a problem and we haven't connected what we heard on Sunday with the situation we're experiencing on Wednesday.
[32:55] when your back was up against the wall and you saw no way out, did I not open a way through the sea for you? When that mountain was so unmovable, did I not move it?
[33:10] When you thought that that situation was so overwhelming and yet found that you were not overwhelmed, that was me, Jesus is saying. Is your heart so hard?
[33:23] Can you not trust me in this new trial? Oh, what a wretched thing is our unbelief as Christians. So slow to believe with just simple childlike faith.
[33:37] So slow to take Jesus at his word as if he were no liar. Do we not have a past record of God's faithful deliverances to draw upon?
[33:49] Our Lord expects us to apply past help received to present trials. And it's that chasm between those two that is our wretched unbelief.
[34:02] We're not trusting that one who's demonstrated his faithfulness to us. Our God, our help in ages past will be our help and our hope for years to come.
[34:14] Be still, my soul, thy God doth undertake to guide the future as he has the past. It shouldn't be hard to trust a Savior who has a track record of 100% faithful.
[34:29] Now maybe if he goes bad one out of ten, we'd have a reason for worry. Do you think for a moment, I mean, start at Genesis and see his faithfulness.
[34:41] Read right through to Revelation, the end of the story. You will not find one time he failed his people. Do you think he's going to ruin that reputation on you and your little trial or your big trial?
[34:56] If I'm able to save you from a deserved hell, is anything too hard for me? He would ask. Oh, we too need these repeated tests of faith. They ought to humble us.
[35:08] They ought to send us to the throne of grace, there to plead for mercy. me. We have doubted your faithfulness. We've doubted your credibility.
[35:21] We have really wondered whether you could be trusted or not. And as we come humbled and confessing, he's more than happy to forgive us. What a Savior. So they needed that rebuke for their slowness to believe and to learn from the lesson of the resources that are in Jesus Christ for all of our problems.
[35:43] But secondly, they were rebuked for their slowness to learn in that they failed to understand Christ's warning against the yeast of false teaching. He says, why were you talking about having no bread?
[35:57] Do you not understand? Jesus would say to us, if there's something you don't understand, come and ask me. Don't talk to others that don't have a clue either.
[36:11] Come and ask me. Is Jesus your first go to when you're in situations where you're frustrated and you don't know what to do? He's there for you in those puzzling, confusing times.
[36:23] He's there for that. And they should have known better and have come to him. And they should have known that Jesus often talks about spiritual things in physical terms.
[36:36] He does it all the time. And the crowds, they get lost in it. They don't understand. But Jesus would draw the disciples away. Say, well, I was speaking about this spiritual problem in physical terms and parables and such.
[36:49] Proverbs. Jesus expected them to understand. Don't you understand? I wasn't talking about literal yeast in bread.
[37:02] Matthew 16 says, he came to them and he said, how is it you don't understand that I was not talking to you about bread? Be on your guard against the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
[37:14] Then they understood that he was not telling them to guard against the yeast using bread, but against the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees. You see, they needed another word from Jesus to sort them out.
[37:27] And Jesus is such a patient teacher and he does that for them. But he also rebukes them. You should know better by now. You've been with me two years. Are you aware of the spiritual danger of false teaching?
[37:44] I don't mean hypothetically. I mean a danger to your soul of false ideas that are prevalent in the society, in churches today. Ideas have consequences.
[37:57] They start world wars. They ruin souls forever. And they permeate our culture and bombard our eyes and ears and minds and hearts with their popular lives in our music, in our movies, our entertainment, in the advertisements, in the news, in the internet, in politics, in sports.
[38:18] It's coming at us from all angles. It's the poison in the air that we breathe. And though the specific false teachings change with every age, it's interesting that we still have many of the same problems that the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians had.
[38:38] There's still plenty of teachers of self-help salvation of the Pharisees. If you're good enough, you do enough religious deeds, you're better than most, you'll make it into heaven.
[38:53] That's being preached today in churches all over the United States. Pharisees. There's still plenty of religious hypocrisy, people living for the wrong audience, drawing near to God with their lips as they come to worship, but their hearts are miles away from Him.
[39:14] That's the Pharisees. There's still plenty of temptations for the church to lean on political solutions to solve spiritual problems. That was the Herodians and too much of the Sadducees problem.
[39:27] There's still plenty of ignorance on the true identity of who Jesus is. Many a church no longer believes He's God.
[39:39] They don't understand His mission, why He's here. He's just here to have us all hold hands and sing kumbaya. No, He's here to save sinners from hell. They don't understand who He is or why He's come.
[39:51] And yet the churches have their message. There's still perversions of Christianity hankering after physical signs and wonders.
[40:05] Power evangelism is what it was called back in the 70s. Still demanding to see before believing. To understand everything before trusting.
[40:16] To have all the questions answered. indisputable evidence. Do you know that we don't need new signs and wonders? We already have had signs and wonders and they're recorded for us here.
[40:32] Do you know what John says under inspiration of Scripture at the end of his gospel? He says, Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not recorded in this book.
[40:46] But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in His name. You don't need new signs and wonders.
[40:59] He's already been vindicated as God's Son and Messiah by His many miraculous signs recorded in Scripture. Here, just in John's gospel alone, he's saying, there's enough here for you to know who Jesus is and by faith in Him to receive eternal life.
[41:17] God. So be done with this desire. Show us new signs and wonders and then we'll believe. Oh, what a popular thing that is in the world today.
[41:30] There's still plenty of false doctrines contrary to the Bible. One theologian described modern Protestant religion as this, a God without wrath, bringing men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministry of a Christ without a cross.
[41:51] That's what's being offered to the masses. That's what men's itching ears want to hear about a God who has gutted out of Him anything of wrath for sin, anything of justice and righteousness and holiness.
[42:07] He's just all love. God without wrath. Men without sin.
[42:21] Oh, we're pretty good. At the core, we all mean well. We just slip up sometimes. We all make it. It's human to make mistakes. God understands. a kingdom without judgment, without the punishment of hell for all outside of Christ.
[42:39] Christ's cross has been gutted of penal substitution. That on the cross, Jesus stepped in and was receiving the curse that His people deserved. Full force.
[42:52] Undiluted in His cup. And He drank it all. It was God's wrath that fell on Him. that it might not fall on all who trust in Him. That's being gutted.
[43:04] A Christ without a cross. That's no Christianity at all. It's the new Christianity, but it is not. It's a different religion. Because it does not follow the words of Christ and His apostles that have been leftist in the Bible.
[43:22] Well, Jesus expects every one of us to be on guard. To be watching out for the yeast of the present false doctrines and teachings of religion and of politics that permeate our culture.
[43:41] The Apostle Paul reissues the same warning in Romans 12, too, doesn't he? Do not be conformed any longer to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
[43:53] Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing, and perfect will. So let's hear this warning from Jesus and heed it.
[44:04] Let's not be open to His rebuke of us. Well, we're at Grace Fellowship Church. We know better. We're not subject to any of these dangers.
[44:17] Jesus spoke about a great apostasy that will happen before His coming. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.
[44:29] And we endure to the end by heeding the command to watch and guard ourselves against the yeast of false teaching. Let us not be open to the rebuke of Jesus.
[44:43] Have you still not learned that with me and faith in me? You can meet any trial. And I will bring you through. I do still move mountains.
[44:54] I still do open a way through the sea. Oh, we need our faith to grow. You know how it grows? It grows by meeting our Savior here.
[45:07] In the Word of God, Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of Christ. Do you still have a daily Bible reading time?
[45:19] Is it still a priority with you? Probably was when you first got saved. Do you still do that? Or are you thinking that these ideas have no danger for me?
[45:31] No, we spot the falsehood by knowing the truth. We heard it in the Sunday school recently. If ever there's a time we need the belt of truth, we need it now. If we need the sword of the Spirit, we need it in our day.
[45:44] You need it. I need it. If you've fallen off from your daily Bible, find time. Find time. Are you taking advantage of the Sunday school lesson? Be here for that hour.
[45:56] Wonderful. To take in the Word of God because what it is is it's faith food. And it's another dot that's helping you to connect it so that when Wednesday's trial comes, you say, oh yeah, this is a spiritual battle.
[46:08] But I have strength in Christ and I have armor in Christ to be able to fight this battle. Coming back tonight or on Sunday nights for preaching through 1 Corinthians, these are opportunities, you see, for faith food.
[46:26] Take it in. Drink it in. We need it. The disciples had something of the hardness of heart that was found in the people. It is, you see, the same lack of understanding in the culture was found in them.
[46:42] And the remainder of our study, we're going to see Jesus addressing that. You're believing just what they're believing about who I am and my mission here. He's got to teach them.
[46:54] So what's the difference between his disciples and the Pharisees and the unbelieving people that Jesus ministered in Galilee? He's bringing that ministry to a close.
[47:05] What's the difference between the two? We find a similar hardness of heart. Well, the difference is that the disciples keep coming back for more. The Pharisees were not interested in learning.
[47:18] They were interested in needling Jesus. The disciples just kept coming back. They're in the same boat with Jesus. They're following him. John Calvin says that the beginning of all true religion is teachableness.
[47:34] God had given them a teachable heart. Jesus had to rebuke them, yes. But they didn't go away mad and say, well, that's it. I'm done following him. He said, I'm foolish.
[47:47] I'm not understanding what I should know. Now they said, come back. Teach me, Lord. Teach me. Teach me to follow your decrees and I will obey them with all my heart.
[47:58] Give me understanding. They kept coming back to Christ to put their neck in the yoke with him and learn from him who is gentle and lowly in heart.
[48:10] Never found a teacher like Jesus so humble, so patient, so kind. Men, you need another test. You need to connect these dots.
[48:20] Come on. Come on. Jesus, the author and finisher of faith. You see, he's only had them for two years.
[48:32] There's still a lot of finishing work to be done in them, as there is with you, as there is with me. And thank God, Jesus is such a teacher. He's committed to them. They stuck with him, but he stuck with them.
[48:46] And before they were done, they will turn the world upside down. May we be growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
[49:00] Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for your word, for being so honest with your disciples and with us. Thank you for so patient that your teaching is and so gentle that you don't send us away as your people, but you are committed to teaching us over and over.
[49:21] Please give us that teachable heart, that humility to own our sin, our ignorance, and to come to you, the great prophet of your people, to be taught by you.
[49:33] Thank you for your teaching ministry that we've received already today. May it work in us, a fitting response to such a good Savior. We ask in Jesus' name.
[49:45] Amen. We'll forgo our closing hymn. Let me close with Isaiah 26, 3 and 4.
[49:57] You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever. For the Lord, the Lord, is the rock eternal.
[50:08] Amen. Amen. Amen.