And so we come again to these
stories and their confrontation stories as the Lord Jesus deliberately
goes into the places where they established their power and authority,
claimed the best seats and claimed the esteem of men. And it's really
interesting in this, in verse 1, he entered into the synagogue
and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And the
commentators, and I believe rightly so, say that this man was in
a sense brought there and planted there by the Pharisees. We can't
doubt the fact that they had done this on many occasions and
will do this on many occasions, but they deliberately plotted
these things and planned them. But there was a man there that
was a withered hand. And they watched him, the Pharisees
watched him, whether he would heal on the Sabbath day. And they watched him that they
might accuse him. It's extraordinary, isn't it,
that Satan is the accuser of the brethren and he accuses them
day and night, it's said in Revelation 12. But now he's been cast down
because of what Gary just told us, that the Lord Jesus has finished
his work. He has saved his people. There
is no place in heaven now for Satan and his accusations. But
these men were spying on the Lord Jesus. They weren't there
in mercy. They weren't there with any other
intention. having been embarrassed by what
the Lord Jesus had said to them just the previous week regarding
the Sabbath and his claims about himself. He claimed to be Lord
of the Sabbath. He claimed that his friends,
his disciples who were picking those grains of wheat were innocent
and he exposed the Pharisees for what they were. And in that
story he reminded them from their own history of a terrible incident
in the life of the priests of God in the days of Abiathar the
priest. when an Edomite, Doeg the Edomite,
was led by Saul to kill all the priests of God that he could
get his hands on, and as well as that, all of the people in
that village where they all lived of Nob, women and children and
babies. And so rather than being softened
by the scriptures, they actually became more hardened. They were
determined to accuse him. And now the Sabbath was their
best opportunity. And these men, these wicked men,
were there and ready for business. And so wherever God's people
are gathered, there Satan will sow his tears. And what wickedness
in these men, coming to the house of God, pretending to worship
God, who is a consuming fire. They knew about God from the
histories. They claimed to know him from
the books that they read. the books of the Bible that they
understood and knew off by heart. But these men were driven with
intentions of self-righteousness and jealousy, driven to condemn,
to accuse and to plot murder on the Sabbath day and in the
synagogue. It's just a picture, a graphic
picture of how much legalism and self-righteousness drives
people to do things which, in the normal course of events,
people would be horrified by. And how much self-righteousness
and legalism has been associated throughout the ages of the Church
on this whole business of Sabbath-keeping. As we saw last week, the Pharisees
had 24 chapters in their Talmud just devoted to Sabbath laws. But the Lord Jesus confronts
their wickedness in the most marvellous and graphic way. And he said to the man with the
withered hand, stand forth. He says to this man, step into
the middle of the room where all can see. It was a bold defiance
on the part of the Lord Jesus to these spying enemies. So they
were playing the spy on the Lord Jesus. They were doing things
in a crafty and sneaky way and he does something which is open
and clear and he wants everyone to see it. And so there's a deliberate
confrontation as Jesus had proclaimed himself Lord of the Sabbath in
the previous week and now on another Sabbath day he goes into
their synagogue as the scriptures say, it was their synagogue.
They took ownership of it and control of it. And we have to
keep remembering that it's in all of these stories, it's the
Lord Jesus who provokes the controversy. The Pharisees think they are
driving the events here, but in fact it's the Lord Jesus who
sovereignly controls all of the events. The Lord is Lord of the
Sabbath, and if He's Lord of the Sabbath, He's Lord of all.
And it's so extraordinary, isn't it, in the Scriptures, that so
often Jesus seems to do miracles on the Sabbath. He heals the
demon-possessed man in chapter 1. He heals a woman in Luke 13. He heals a man with drops in
Luke 14. He heals a lame man in John chapter
5, all on the Sabbath day. So the Lord Jesus makes their
wicked hypocrisy and hatred open for all to see. The lights come
into the world and the darkness has not understood it. And so
the Lord Jesus calls on his people to be people who are open. In
2 Corinthians 4 it says, Therefore seeing we have this ministry,
as we have received mercy, we faint not, but have renounced
the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor
handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth,
commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of God. But if our gospel be hid, it
is hid to them that are lost. And so where the gospel is proclaimed,
where the Lord Jesus is raised up, there will always be confrontation. The light will always confront
the darkness. And just as the light overcomes
the darkness with consummate ease, the Lord Jesus overcomes
these men of the darkness with great ease. And he said to them
in verse 4, Is it lawful to do good on Sabbath days or to do
evil, to save life or to kill? But they held their peace. And
so on the Sabbath you have the opportunity to do good. The means
are available and they're not doing something is actually sin. Again Jesus shows the hypocrisy
of the outward law based religion. We must remember that the Lord
Jesus fully obeyed the law of God both in the letter and the
spirit. We must remember from any of
these stories there is nothing in the Lord Jesus that ever led
him in any way to sin against the law. He was born of a woman,
born under the law, and he honoured the law as holy and righteous
and good. And in John 8.45 he can ask these
same Pharisees much further into his ministry, he says, ask them
if any of them can convict him of any sin. These men who watched
him intently to accuse him are challenged openly by the Lord
Jesus. And they thought that they had
laid the perfect trap for him, as they will do on other occasions. If Jesus refused to heal the
man, he would be accused of being uncaring or weak. or even unable
and then if he does heal him they can accuse him of being
a Sabbath breaker because for them it was work on the Sabbath. Once again the Lord shows by
his actions that the true Sabbath was made for man and not man
for the Sabbath. It was a gift from God. It was
never intended to be a day of mere religious bondage. but a
day that portrayed the rest of faith in Christ. The Sabbath
was designed to show sinners how God does men good, eternal
good, and especially those who deserve evil. The Sabbath was
ordained to show us how God purposed from eternity to save life. by
the obedience of the Lord Jesus. It was a picture of Christ's
finished work and of our resting in him, ceasing from our works
by faith in his provision for those who are helpless in a desert
land, manna provided from heaven, water provided from a rock. God's
able to provide for his people when there is nothing else around
at all. And so the opposition to God
and opposition to his people is irrational. Their own scriptures
and their silence show them that they should have flown the white
flag of surrender and their consciences made it clear to them they have
no defence to offer. And as the Bible says every mouth
will be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Hateful people The other aspect of opposition
to God, it will be hateful to people whose plight warrants
compassion and understanding. And we'll see that again and
again as we go through the Gospels. And opposition to God and his
people is always based on self-righteousness. Standing in judgment on others
is only done from the lofty throne of the self-esteemed eye. And
there is no self-righteousness more hardened and hardening than
religious self-righteousness. Outwardly moral people with a
Bible under their arm. No wonder David said, Lord save
me from lying lips. So their silence here is proof
of their wickedness. And then the Lord Jesus in Mark
3 verse 5 looked around about on them with anger being grieved
at the hardness of their hearts he said unto the man stretch
forth thine hand and he stretched it out and his hand was restored
as whole as the other so the Lord Jesus looks around these
people with anger. He both looks in anger at what
they are doing and what they are plotting and their hatred
but also at the same time he is grieved and people might say
well it's confusing how can the Lord Jesus be angry and then
grieve? I think the answer is tied up
in many things. The Lord Jesus was absolutely,
as much as he was fully God, he was fully human. And so he
is filled with compassion and understanding about the frailty
of the fallen sons of Adam. but he's also grieved about the
destruction of wicked men because the Lord Jesus knows the end
of these people and he knows that he himself will suffer the
infinite wrath of a holy God and he's grieved about their
end. No one who's ever walked this
earth knows about the torments of hell as the Lord Jesus does. And we should be reminded that
we shouldn't become hard-hearted regarding the destruction of
the wicked. It is real. It is going on now. It is terrible. And we are made
from the same lump of clay. These people knew from their
own history that the Lord had destroyed Jerusalem because of
religious wickedness. In Ezekiel 9 verse 4 when that
destruction happens God sends the destroying angels and he
sends one into Jerusalem and he's to put a mark on the foreheads
of all of the people in Jerusalem who grieve and lament. over the wickedness. We have
to be mindful as we read and hear of the hard-heartedness
of these men that when we see religious hypocrisy around us
and when we see self-righteous legalism and we see people that
we love and care for being trapped by religious activities that
we don't become hard-hearted. We need to grieve as well as
being mindful of what God will do. But now the good news in
this story. In this miracle, as I've said
before, the miracles are portrayals of salvation by grace. As we
see later on in this same passage, the Lord Jesus healed thousands
of people. in those years of ministry we
just have glimpses and so we have to keep asking ourselves
why did God the Holy Spirit bring these stories to us and I suggest
to you that they're stories of salvation, wonderful salvation
of the Lord Jesus. So in the first part of this
story he said to the man and so God calls his people with
a particular and personal call. Psalm 64 says, Blessed is the
man whom you choose and cause to approach you, that he may
dwell in your courts, we shall be satisfied with the goodness
of thy house, even of thy holy temple. And then he says to the
man, stretch out your hand. The man had no ability to stretch
out his hand. His will to do anything to help
himself was clearly seen that it was impossible. He had no
power. Sinners are dead in transgressions
and sins and they have no will to come no desire to come, they
cannot come. And the question that's raised
by lots of people is then why does God command what is impossible? The answer from the scriptures
is a wonderful answer for sinners like us. It's a good question. Jesus says what is impossible
with men is possible with God. This is the really good news
isn't it? You will call his name Jesus for he will save his people
from their sins. And so the scriptures keep showing
us again and again that the Lord Jesus comes and he calls and
when he calls he calls personally and he calls with power. When
Jesus calls his words have power. As he says in John's Gospel my
words are spirit and they are life. So this man who had no
power and no ability then stretched his hand out. So this man actually
believed the Lord Jesus. How many times through his life
would he have tried to stretch out his hand? How many times
would he have grieved that his right hand couldn't be used,
was dried up and withered? This man doesn't raise any questions.
about the Lord Jesus, he doesn't question him at all, he doesn't
debate with the Lord Jesus about the impossibility, he didn't
know the result that would flow from his action, he simply did
as the Lord Jesus asked. And then we have the remarkable
result of the man acting in faith and in response to God's word
and it was restored whole as the other one. And this restoring
is not a word that means just healing, it's a word that's used
in the scriptures regarding the Lord Jesus and him restoring
all things. As he says to the Pharisees,
destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it. Restore
is the word. So the Lord Jesus restores that
which was lost. And when the Lord Jesus restores
that which was lost, the restoration is complete and the restoration
is perfect. It was as whole as the other
one. And so how often do we feel the arm of our strength withered
up and all the efforts we mustered to bring forth fruit are just
useless. May the Lord Jesus remind us
again and again that he says, without me you can do nothing. And may he help us to remember
and be reminded again and again that with his command comes promise
and with his promise comes power, the power to perform. and to
achieve what God had purposed to do. And for those who don't
yet know our Redeemer, there's great hope in these verses. The
Lord Jesus calls people through the preaching of the gospel.
Come unto me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. He says, come. Come without any
conditions. Come without any preparations.
Come without any qualifications. Come to the Lord Jesus. Believe
on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. Robert Hawker has a
great comment on this aspect of God commanding and then enabling. He says it is truly blessed to
eye this in every minute circumstance of life. Hence Paul was commissioned
to direct the Philippians to work out their own salvation
with fear and trembling because that the Lord himself would work
in them both to will and to do of his good pleasure in Philippians
2, 12 and 13. And hence the same apostle adds
in the same epistle, I can do nothing of myself. But I can
do all things through Christ who strengthens me. It is truly blessed to be enabled
through grace to have the lowest opinion of ourselves, that our
views of Jesus may be the more exalted, and to be sensible of
our nothingness, that the Lord may have all the glory. And so we see in this man a picture
of salvation, and we see in this event, sadly, sadly, sadly, that
the Pharisees in verse 6 went forth and straight away took
counsel with the Herodians against him, that how they might destroy
him. It's extraordinary, isn't it?
The pictures of the Pharisees are salutary lessons to us that
men love the darkness and hate the light for fear that their
deeds may be exposed. And how obstinate is that rage
which drives the wicked to oppose God Even after they have been
convinced the previous week, they pour out venom more and
more. It is truly monstrous and shocking
that the most distinguished teachers of the law, who were entrusted
with the government of the church in those days, are engaged, like
robbers, in contriving murder. What a picture we have here of
the difference between the Lord's works and those of Satan. The Lord works openly for all
to see. He brings compassion and healing
and all his works are done to bring faith, to encourage faith,
to strengthen faith in him and his provision. These evil workers
come in to spy on the Lord and his people, to entrap them, to
ensnare them. They really hate their religion,
and they really hate the light. And now they even join with their
enemies to plot the murder of an innocent man, and this on
the Sabbath, their special day. In the previous week, these same
people were reminded of that terrible incident from their
history when wicked Saul had used an Edomite to slay God's
priest. all that he could lay his hands
upon. Women and children and babies
in the town of Knob. They were shown from God's word. that they who claimed to esteem
the righteous acts of David in fact were living out the wickedness
of Saul and the Edomite dough egg that he used. So like critters
which love the darkness, they then scurry to plot with Herod's
followers. Herod who they despised because
he was an Idumenian, an Edomite, like Saul's murderous friend. The deeds of darkness are shown
by the light and they reveal just how evil they are, irrational,
ungodly, hypocritical. They love the darkness more than
the light. So they had a great intellectual
knowledge of the scriptures. But in fact their hearts were
stone cold hard. They despised Herod because he
was Rome's puppet. They had just accused the tax
collectors of being sinners. Sinners who were cut out from
these same synagogues. cut out from that worship. And
now they join with these Herodians who spiritually represent the
world and Rome in plotting murder. And the Lord Jesus exposed the
emptiness of their, their inward emptiness and exposed their sin. He denounced their outward religious
rituals. He disregarded the traditions
of their fathers and he taught salvation by grace alone. and Satan had blinded their minds. And the question is what do we
do when we encounter these people? Verse 7 is very instructive for
us because the Lord Jesus doesn't stay there and debate and go
and meet with them. He withdrew himself with his
disciples to the sea and a great multitude from Galilee followed
him and from Judea. And so the question is should
we keep on debating and arguing with people over the things of
God? Well, should we just show people plainly from the scriptures
and then leave God to sort out the problems? In Matthew 15,
14, Jesus says to his disciples regarding the Pharisees, just
leave them alone. Boldly present the gospel, boldly
proclaim the Lord Jesus and get out of the way. The kingdom of
God is not advanced by debate and argument. It's a spiritual
kingdom. And our battle is not against
flesh and blood. And the Lord Jesus just withdrew.
But in withdrawing there is a remarkable picture of his gathering. A wonderful
picture of the Lord gathering his people to himself. In verse
8 it says, And from Jerusalem and Edometer and beyond Jordan
And they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they
had heard what great things he did, came unto him. And he spoke
to his disciples that a small ship should wait on him because
of the multitude, lest they should throng him. For he had healed
many, insomuch as they pressed upon him for it to touch him.
It's extraordinary, isn't it? The Lord Jesus withdraws from
these religious hypocrites and leaves them, leaves them in judgement
and then goes out and gathers this multitude to himself. What
a great picture of the gathering that the Lord Jesus was going
to do. He came to gather his own from every tribe and kindred
and nation of the world, and he will gather them all. And
the unclean spirits, when they saw him, they fell down before
him and cried out, saying, Thou art the Son of God. The devils
confessed Christ to be God. while many who would wish to
be thought of as God's devoted followers just deny him. They are more ignorant, sadly,
than the devils. What sad blindness there is in
the human heart. And Jesus then rebuked the devils,
rebuked the demons, and said to them that they should not
make him known. He didn't need the demons to
proclaim him. They only knew him in judgment.
He had prepared that work for his disciples. The recipients
of grace and mercy and love are the ones best made to be the
ones who proclaim the Lord who saves. And they proclaim it through
the foolishness of preaching, the foolishness of proclaiming
the Lord Jesus and him crucified. And they do it from vessels of
clay, just vessels of clay. And so here we have a great picture
of the Lord of the Sabbath goes on this Sabbath into a synagogue
where Satan's workers gather to conspire and openly confronts
these people as the light comes into that darkness and the darkness
cannot overcome it. He exposes their hypocrisy, not
us, but he does. He calls his own to himself.
He speaks the word of healing and restoration in the presence
of his enemies. He gives these evil men over
to their blindness and their wickedness. He is Lord even over
all of these things. And then he leads his own out
in triumphal procession. and lays a feast before them
in the presence of their enemies. He gathers people to himself
from every tribe and nation, a people who aren't necessarily
the people who thought that they were so special like these Pharisees,
that they were the chosen and special ones. He gathers people,
even people from wicked Edom, gathers them to himself. And
so here we have a man and a multitude rejoicing and worshipping and
the enemies cast out with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.
God rescues his own from Satan's house. He has bound the strong
man. and he leads his own out in triumph. It's the same picture each time
as he, the Lord Jesus, who is touched with the feelings of
our infirmities, comes in grace and eternal love and power. And others are left cast out
because of their open evil. And this has continued to this
day. And so for us, do we find ourselves
often with a withered arm of faith, a seemingly useless right
arm of hope, a pathetic sense of love for our brethren and
even for the Lord. The trials of sin and the Satan
and the world crush in upon our joy in the Lord. The Pharisees
of the religious world continue to harass us and at the same
time diminishing the accomplished work of our Saviour and then
putting a burden of work, a yoke upon God's children. This man
had suffered for a long time, but there is great hope in his
restoration. This man comes to the means available. He comes to hear of God and he
meets the Lord Jesus. And he comes with the words from
God to him, which is the power of God unto salvation. So let's
be quick to come back to the light. Trusting a saviour who
does the impossible. Whenever we feel withered and
dried up, let's run back to a Saviour who does things which are beyond
the imagining of men. Let's not be caught up in the
sadness of the religious world around us, but let's cling to
the Lord Jesus as if our very life depended on it. As Isaiah
35 says, Strengthen you the weak hand and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful
heart, Be strong, Fear not, behold your God will come with vengeance,
even God with recompense. He will come and save you. Then
the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf
shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap
as a heart and the tongue of the dumb sing. For in the wilderness
shall waters break out and streams in the desert. And a highway
shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of
holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it shall be
for those the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor any
ravenous beast go up thereon. It shall not be found. But the
redeemed will walk there, and the ransomed of the Lord shall
return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon
their heads. And they shall obtain joy and
gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. So the Lord
Jesus still calls people all the time, come to me. If so, come, stretch out a hand
that has no power and cling to the Lord Jesus as if your whole
life depended on it and be made whole in him. Amen.