How Many Times Does God Have to Prove Himself

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How Many Times Does God Have to Prove Himself?

April 14, 2013 Ainsworth Assembly of God

AM Church

BIBLE TEXT:

13And He left them, and getting into the boat again, departed to the other side.14Now£the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat.15Then He charged them, saying,“Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”

16And they reasoned among themselves, saying,“It is because we have no bread.”

17But Jesus, being aware ofit, said to them,“Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart£still hardened?18Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember?19When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?”

They said to Him, “Twelve.”

20“Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?”

And they said, “Seven.”

21So He said to them,“Howis it you do not understand?”

This morning we are continuing on in our series of messages from the Gospel of Mark. I want you to know that I covet your prayers for God’s guidance and blessing on each of these messages. We feel a great dependence upon the Spirit of God that we might “feed God’s sheep” and call in the lost as well. Please pray that God will help me in this great calling to preach His word.

In last week’s message we focused our thoughts upon the importance of SEEKING THE SON AND NOT THE SIGNS! I believe that signs will follow the believer as a matter of course. Just do what God said to do. Preach the gospel. Share the good news with people. Show folks that “God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Live out your faith openly and unashamedly! Lay hands on the sick and pray for them. Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Get so filled up with Jesus that people will see the fruits of the Spirit and want what you have.

Now today’s theme is in the form of a question:

HOW MANY TIMES DOES THE LORD HAVE TO PROVE HIMSELF?

Notice with me that after Jesus finished feeding the 4,000 in verse 9, He immediately got into the boat with His disciples and “came to the region of Dalmanutha.” Verse 10

It is believed to be on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, possibly near Magadan. Mark now reports that the Pharisees came out at this time and began to dispute with Jesus and requesting that He show them a sign. We know from what is said that Jesus got somewhat ‘ticked’ off at them. His body language spoke volumes. What did He do? Mark reports in verse 13, “And he left them, and getting into the boat again, departed to the other side.” Jesus turned his back on them and left. That is pretty powerful body language!

So what do we see? He arrived in verse 10. He left in verse 13. I don’t know if there were other people Jesus dealt with at this time, but what I do know is that in Mark’s mind (or Peter’s because that is who Mark is writing for), this was a very short stay and Jesus left very abruptly. We might even think He left rudely. I get the feeling He had had enough! He was sick of these religious hypocrites. He walked away. He turned His back on them and left.

It seems to have been one of those trips when no one said much. You have probably been on one of those trips. The silence is so thick you can cut it with a knife. The disciples don’t seem to have discussed what happened until they arrived on the other side. Matthew’s gospel especially seems clear on this point. Maybe they talked about it in low tones. Maybe the hour or two that it took to row/sail across the lake was one of those trips we have all taken when Dad or Mom is really upset and no one says a word. Even the kids sit in the back and just ‘shut up!’ That is kind of the feeling I get from the way this is reported.

I get the feeling that this really kind of torqued Jesus! Wherever Dalmanutha was and whoever was there that needed Christ, never got a chance to see Him because Jesus left. The hypocrisy and unbelief of this bunch of Pharisees seems to have brought Jesus to the end of His patience. And that is the first point I want to make out of this text!

1. There Is An End To The Lord’s Patience.

It would do us good to stop for a few moments and look at the scene before us. The Pharisees are left standing on the shore in their religious robes, and Jesus is getting smaller and smaller in the distance as He and the disciples leave.

There is no more teaching. No more miracles. No signs given. No works of supernatural power.

Folks, its possible to sin away the day of grace! Clear back in Genesis 3:6, God said in the days of Noah, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever,…!”

God gave the ancient world in Noah’s day 120 years to repent and turn from their sin and wickedness. And then there came a day when the door of the ark was shut and that was it. If you were not on the ark, you died in the flood waters. God had given plenty of time to repent. Only eight took advantage of it.

Some other notable examples might include:

*The Israelites whose bodies fell in the wilderness because they

Continually refused to believe God and follow the man God put in charge of them. The book of Hebrews sums up the warning: “Today, if you hear His voice, Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion (wilderness).” (Hebrews 3:7,15)

Israel’s repeated resistance to God’s Spirit caused them to lose out on what God had for them.

*Samson, was a specially chosen man to judge Israel. He was endowed by the Spirit with a tremendous physical strength, but there came a day when the Spirit departed from Him and he became like other men. Samson flirted with sin. He refused to discipline himself. (Judges 16:20)

*King Saul was chosen by God and anointed with the Holy Spirit. But Saul rebelled against the Holy Spirit and refused to fully obey God. Finally, God’s Spirit left him and he ended up seeking guidance from a witch and committing suicide on the battlefield. God gave the kingship to David.

Proverbs 29:1 refers to the end of God’s patience.

1He who is often rebuked,and hardenshis neck,

Will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.

HOW MANY TIMES DOES THE LORD HAVE TO PROVE HIMSELF BEFORE WE WILL TRULY BELIEVE HIM?

In this passage before us we see a side of Jesus that we may not like so well. Jesus had had enough of the religious people and their doubts. Their continual requests for Him to prove Himself were met with a deep sigh and then silence!

Over the years God’s Spirit has departed from individuals who once knew Him. He has left denominations that once preached His gospel, but fell into rationalism and liberalism. He has left colleges that once were used to train ministers of the gospel. Today, those same colleges ridicule the old time gospel of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus departed!

We have to ask why? Why did Jesus leave so abruptly? The people who might have been helped missed out. The people who might have heard the gospel at Dalmanutha never heard it.

That’s the cost of rejecting God’s messengers! That’s the cost of grieving the Holy Spirit. People are lost!

What was it that caused Jesus to get into the boat and leave? And this leads us to our second point of the message:

2. Hypocrisy is the Sin that Caused the Lord to Depart.

As we read on we find Him warning the disciples of something in particular. This was apparently after a long, silent boat ride across the lake. Notice Mark’s report of what happened when they stepped out of the boat:

14Now£the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they did not have more than one loaf with them in the boat.15Then He charged them, saying,“Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.”

Mark 8:14-15

Matthew 16:12 tells us “Then they understood that He did not tell them to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

And Luke gives us further insight into the underlying problem with the Pharisees. Notice Luke 12:1

“In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together, so that they trampled one another, He began to say to His disciples first of all, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”

It was not the doctrine that led men to the living God that Jesus warned about. It was the doctrine that made hypocrites out of them.

Jesus warned His disciples about the doctrines or teachings of the Pharisees because it made play actors out of men. Rather than make men true servants of the Living God, it generated religious hypocrites. The Pharisees loved to go around in long robes and sit in the best seats and look important (Matthew 23:6-7) It made men into whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones to use Jesus’ own imagery (Matthew 23:27). The very people who should have known God had lost their way.

Jesus called the Pharisees “blind guides” (Matthew 15:14) And He said, “…if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch.”

The word ‘hypocrite’ comes from the Greek upokriths.

It was the word that denoted a stage-actor. It was a custom for Greek and Roman actors to speak in large masks with mechanical devices for augmenting the force of the voice. The hypocrite is a dissembler. He speaks with pretence.

(Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, p. 241-242.)

The word is also defined as a, “a legalist who manipulates the law with casuistry and hair-splitting interpretations for his own benefit. (Linguistic Key to the Greek New Testament, Rienecker, Rogers, p. 45.)

Hypocrisy seems to be the only sin that Jesus dealt harshly with. It seems to be the only thing that made Jesus spew fire and brimstone about.

The woman taken in adultery found grace and forgiveness when faced with Jesus.

The prostitute that came to the Pharisees’ home and washed Jesus’ feet with her tears found Him to be a tender hearted Savior.

The man with the Legion of devils was set free and delivered. No mention is made of the sin that opened the door to the legion of demons.

The Samaritan woman who had had five failed marriages and finally gave up on marriage and just lived with number 6, found Jesus to be a sympathetic Savior.

Zacchaeus, the greedy little tax collector, who had probably fleeced many a fat sheep of his shekels found a friend in Christ.

Peter, who denied Jesus three times, was forgiven and restored to fellowship and leadership.

The Bible even says that Jesus loved the rich young ruler who came asking how to be saved but left unwilling to part with his wealth. (Mark 10:17-22)

The only people in the Bible that Jesus dealt harshly with were the religious hypocrites!

He called them snakes, vipers.

He called them whitewashed tombs!

He called them sons of murderers! (Matthew 23:27,31,33)

The only people He turned His back on that I can find were those who were only interested in playing games.

And in our text, Jesus turned His back on them! And He warned His disciples to beware of them and their doctrine!

Jesus made a statement in John 8:31-32

“…If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

In Ephesians 4:15 Paul said Christians are to “speaking the truth in love…”

In Ephesians 4:25 Paul calls Christians to “speak every man truth with his neighbor.”

In John 14:17, Jesus called the Holy Spirit, “the Spirit of Truth…”

The church is the “pillar and ground of the truth.” I Timothy 3:15

And finally, Paul says that many perish (in hell) because “they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” II Thessalonians 2:10

Living in the truth can be a very painful experience if we have not been doing that. But it can also be a very freeing experience.

Today’s message is a warning to beware of allowing our lives as followers of Christ to become tainted by play acting and pretending.

And it is a call to live in the truth. I think Jesus got tired of proving Himself to people who weren’t really interested in knowing who He was. I think He gets tired today of proving Himself to people over and over and they never make any real changes. I think the Lord is looking for people who will be truthful about their fears and failures no matter how terrible they may be. He just wants honesty. I think the Lord is looking for a church that will honestly admit its faults and shortcomings and ask the Lord to fix it. I think the Lord is happy to prove Himself to folks who truly want to know and follow the truth.

It’s a good thing to admit we don’t have it altogether.

It’s a good thing to come to church and ask for prayer because we have struggled.

It’s a good thing to openly admit that there are some things we are seeking that we haven’t obtained yet in God.

It’s a good thing to acknowledge that we are all a work in progress. It’s the person who seems to think its always the other guy who needs the sermon or the lesson.

I THOUGHT HE WAS TALKING TO YOU
At the height of a political corruption trial, the prosecuting attorney attacked a witness. "Isn't it true," he bellowed, "that you accepted five thousand dollars to compromise this case?"
The witness stared out the window, as though he hadn't heard the question.
"Isn't it true that you accepted five thousand dollars to compromise this case?" the lawyer repeated.
The witness still did not respond.
Finally, the judge leaned over and said, "Sir, please answer the question."
"Oh," the startled witness said, "I thought he was talking to you."