Good morning everyone. If you
would open your Bibles with me to Mark chapter 3. Begin a study
this morning of Mark chapter 3. Before we begin, let's bow
together in prayer. Our Father, we humbly bow in
your presence this morning. We come as needy sinners, needing
your mercy, needing your grace, needing your forgiveness, needing
the blood and the righteousness of Christ our Savior. Father,
we come before you as your little ones, needing your presence,
needing your protection, needing your provision. And Father, I
pray that you'd send your spirit upon us this morning and that
you would enable us to worship you in spirit and in truth. Father,
be with us in a mighty and special way this morning, we pray. Show us your glory, Father. Father,
we're thankful for this family of believers that you have called
together in this place. And Father, I pray you would
continue to bless us, that you bless with your presence, that
you continue to bless your gospel as it goes forth, to call out
your sheep, to feed and comfort and edify your sheep. And Father,
for those of our number who are in times of great difficulty,
we pray for them. We pray, Father, that you give
a special portion of your presence in their heart, Father, that
you would deliver, that you'd heal, that you'd comfort. We
pray, Father, for those who are recovering from surgery. We pray
for little Lynn and we pray for Debbie and others, Father, who
are recovering and need you especially. Father, be with them, we pray.
Now again, Father, I beg of you that you bless us as we look
into your word this morning. Enable us to see Christ our Savior.
Of course, in his precious name, for his sake we pray, amen. I titled the lesson this morning,
Hardness or Healing? You remember last week we looked
at the Lord had just taught the disciples and the Pharisees who
were there questioning them that acts of mercy, acts of necessity,
now that's work, But though that work is always permitted on the
Sabbath day, and the Lord told them he's the right one to judge
that because he's the Lord of the Sabbath. Now he taught that,
and now he's gonna give them a demonstration of it. Let's
read our text, and we'll come back and make some comments on
it. Mark three, verse one. And he entered again into the
synagogue, and there was a man there which had a withered hand.
And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath
day, that they might accuse him. And he saith unto the man which
had the withered hand, stand forth. And he said unto them,
is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days, or to do evil,
to save life or to kill? But they held their peace. And
when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved
for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man, stretch
forth thine hand. And he stretched it out, and
his hand was restored whole as the other. And the Pharisees
went forth straightway and took counsel with Herodians against
him, how they might destroy him. Now I want us to see two things
from this text this morning. I want us to see the hardness
of the religious human heart and how man's religion hardens
that heart. And then I want us to see complete
healing, complete salvation in Christ the Savior. Now number
one, man's religion, always produces a hardness of heart and a hardness
of attitude. The Lord was angry, he was grieved,
and he looked on them for the hardness of their hearts. Now
think about this, the Pharisees who were in the temple that day,
this is the appointed day of worship, they came to this place
at this time, it's a time of public worship, and they came
with hard hearts and hard, mean attitudes. And I want you to
know, I point this out so that all of us can guard against this
attitude. Watch for it in ourselves. Don't
watch for it in others, watch for it in yourself. Maybe we
can nip it in the bud if we see there. Our task gives us three
ways the hardness of the heart, the hardness that self-righteousness
produces, how it shows itself. First, the Pharisees only watched
the Lord so they could accuse him. so they could be divisive. You see that verse one, he entered
again into the synagogue and there was a man there which had
a withered hand and they watched him, whether he would heal him
on the Sabbath day that they might accuse him. Now the Pharisees
went to the public worship service and they went there to watch
the Lord. That was their purpose, to go watch the Lord. That sounds
good, doesn't it? That might look good on the surface.
I mean, you think what an opportunity they had. The opportunity to
watch the Savior himself. Wouldn't you like that? They
had the opportunity to watch the one greater than Solomon
in his own temple. They had the opportunity to watch
that. I mean, that sounds good, doesn't it? It sounds good until
the Holy Spirit reveals to us what was in their hearts. They
went to watch the Lord so they could accuse him of something.
See, they wanted to draw people away from Christ to themselves.
Now you think of the hardness of heart that causes that to
go to the public worship service with the intention of drawing
people away from Christ instead of to Christ. That's what a hard
heart will produce. They wanted people to follow
them, not the Lord. Now I'm sure they appeared like
pious worshipers of God on the outside, but the Holy Spirit
here told us what was in their heart, it was hatred. divisiveness. They went to the worship service
to tear somebody else down rather than see that the Lord might
build them up in the faith. That was what they were doing.
And again, I want to warn us to watch for this attitude in
ourselves because I promise you God can't be worshiped with that
attitude. Can't be done. I don't want to watch others
to see if they're as pious as I am, as doctrinally straight
as I am, as knowledgeable. That's not the spirit of worship.
And wherever you find that attitude, I can promise you this. You might
even find it in a believer. But the grace of God did not
produce that attitude. It didn't. Hurricane Road Grace
Church. We're supposed to believe something
about grace. We're supposed to love something about grace, aren't
we? The grace of God does not produce that attitude. The grace
of God will never produce a self-righteous, a mean-spirited, or a judgmental
attitude. The grace of God will not produce
legalism. The grace of God will not produce
us looking to the law to find out how to live. It won't produce
gossip. It won't produce slander. It
won't produce backbiting. And wherever you find that attitude,
there is at least a lack of grace in the heart. It could be a total
absence of it. Could be. And I hope we'll be
watchful for that attitude and pray that God will give us that
grace that produces that good fruit. All right, second, a hard,
pharisaical heart. This is what it produces. It
doesn't want good for others. It doesn't want somebody else
to benefit unless they get the glory for it. Look at verse four
of Mark three. And he saith unto them, is it
lawful to do good on the Sabbath days or to do evil, to save life
or to kill? But they held their peace. Now,
the Lord didn't ask him a trick question. The answer to his question
was obvious. The Pharisees knew of course
it's always right to do good on the Sabbath day or any other
day. It's always wrong to hurt somebody or kill somebody or
harm somebody on the Sabbath day. It's especially wrong when
you have the opportunity to do good, but you choose to do evil.
They knew the answer to the question, but they didn't say Yeah, you're
right, it's lawful to do good. It's lawful to be merciful. It's
lawful to give life on the Sabbath day. They didn't answer the question,
even though they knew the answer. And here's why. Because if the
Lord heals that man with a withered hand, and they say it's right
to do good on the Sabbath day, in effect, what they've just
done is put their seal of approval on his ministry. They'll put
their seal of approval on this man, Jesus of Nazareth, if they
say, yes, it's right to do good on the Sabbath day, and then
he heals them. And that's the last thing. Remember,
they're there to draw people away from Christ. Now put their
seal of approval on them. They wanted to discredit the
Lord, not see him get any credit. See, they thought, if the Lord
gets credit, I'm gonna get less. They figured if the Lord got
more of a following, I mean, The Lord heals this man on the
Sabbath day. He's got a withered hand, it's
all crunched up, and if the Lord heals him, well, don't you just
figure the Lord's gonna get more of a following? Other needy people
are gonna follow him. The Lord will get more influence,
and the Pharisees figure they're gonna lose some. They had a hard, mean-spirited
attitude, and the worst thing about it is they wrapped it in
religion and tried to make it look like their religion made
it right for them to have that hard, mean, divisive attitude. They used religion as a way to
gain advantages for themselves and notoriety for themselves
instead of using religion, instead of using this time of public
worship to seek the Lord and see poor sinners receive mercy. They'd rather cut somebody off
than see poor sinners be saved and comforted by Christ. That's
how mean-spirited, how hard-hearted that they were. They were seeking
prominence for themselves instead of seeking humility and worship.
They're seeking that Moses seat instead of sitting out just out
of the way somewhere where you don't cause any distraction and
hearing Christ preach. And I cannot tell you how much
I want us to avoid that attitude. Like Brother Henry used to say,
this is not a poor man's country club. We're not here trying to,
you know, go up in the pecking order and this is what a believer
ought to be doing is trying to go down instead of going up,
right? Oh, I want us to avoid that attitude.
Well, here's the third thing. Legalism and works, it always
produces hard hearts that can only hate Christ, not love him. Now, we just read this, the Lord
healed that man And look what it said in verse five. And when
he looked round about on them with anger and being grieved
for the hardness of their hearts, these men had been involved in
producing their own righteousness for so long. They'd been judgmental
on others for so long. You know, you're not living up
to my standard. Their hearts were hardened. Here
they are in the house of God with the son of God himself,
and they have ill will toward their brethren instead of wanting
good for some poor sinner because their hearts are just past feeling.
This word hardened that Mark uses, it means covered with a
callous. Their jealousy of others had
just been rubbing on their heart for so long, it became calloused
over so that when they see somebody who's suffering, they can't feel
sympathy for them because their heart's just covered over with
a callous. They've been divisive for so long. That irritating,
divisive wish for division had been rubbing on their hearts
for so long, it's calloused over. They can't feel any humility
anymore. They can't feel kindness anymore. All they can feel is a desire
for self-promotion, anger, and resentment, and they're gonna
try to justify it by religion. They're gonna take the word of
God and twist it to justify that hard-hearted attitude. And that
kind of attitude can only produce hatred, which is the opposite
of love. Our Lord told us, hereby shall
all men know that you're my disciples, that you have love one to another. Well, worse, religion, self-righteousness,
even for a believer to say, yes, I'm saved by grace, but I'm better
than other people because I do this and they don't do this.
That attitude will never produce love for your brother. It'll
always produce hatred for your brethren and hatred and resentment
for God himself. That's what happened to these
men, look at verse six. Now here's how angry that they, the Lord
healed a man. The Lord healed this poor man.
Now he can go out and work, he can do money. I mean, you just
think what a blessing this was for this man. And they were so
angry about it that the Pharisees went forth and straightway took
counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him. They didn't want the Lord to
go help other people, they wanted to destroy them. And this is
worth noting, the Pharisees and the Herodians hated one another. I mean, they hated one another.
But boy, they went to him right quick and they could join together
against Christ, couldn't they? to destroy him. And that's the
only thing that kind of attitude can produce in the heart. Here's
a warning for you and me. You think about this. That attitude
drew the Lord's anger. He looked on them with anger. I tell you, that just scares
me so much, it takes my breath away. I don't want the Lord to
be angry with me. Now I know that we're born with
a spiritually dead heart. We absolutely are. I mean, there's
no question about it. But we can harden our hearts
further. We can harden our own hearts.
Remember when the Lord sent the plagues in Egypt? After each
one of the plague, during the plague, Pharaoh said, oh, ask
God, tell Moses, ask God to stop this plague and I'll let the
people go. And the Lord stopped the plague and Pharaoh hardened
his heart and would not let the people go. 11 times that happened. And then God told Moses, now
I'm gonna harden Pharaoh's heart. Now I'm gonna harden his heart.
I'm gonna harden that heart so much, now Pharaoh could not believe. He could not see. He could not
because his heart, first he hardened it, and then God hardened his
heart. And you know what that led to? It led to his destruction
in the Red Sea, didn't it? It led to the destruction of
the most powerful army on earth at that time at the Red Sea,
and it led to the destruction of a whole generation in the
land of Egypt because he hardened his heart. The nation Israel
did the same thing. They hardened their hearts. The
Lord came unto his own, and what happened? His own received him
not. They hid their eyes so that they
could not see Christ. They said, nope, I don't wanna
see. Nope, I don't wanna hear. Don't talk to us anymore about
this. They hardened their hearts. And now, what does Paul tell
us in 2 Corinthians 3? Now God has hardened their heart.
Now God has blinded their eyes, so as a nation, they cannot see
Christ, because God has blinded their eyes. I just can't tell you how much
I don't want that for this congregation. I want us to avoid that attitude
so the Lord doesn't blind our eyes and harden our hearts as
we sit here in our religion. I want us to see Christ. I want
us to know Christ. I want us to know and believe
and love God's grace and mercy for sinners and have that soften
our hearts for each other and for other folks too. But that's what we are by nature.
And those hearts will stay hard unless the Lord does something
for us. Well, here's the second thing I want us to see. It's
complete healing in Christ. The gospel of Christ always produces
spiritual healing for the heart. And the three things I see here
in our text, this always happens when God does all the saving
for the sinner. The first thing is this. God's
election of a people. Verse three, and he said unto
the man which had the weathered hand, stand forth. Now, I'm just
pretty sure there's a pretty good crowd of people around,
wouldn't you say? It's Sabbath day in the temple. Pretty good chance there's a
good crowd of people around. And you know, whenever you have
a group of people of any size, there are a lot of needs. There
are a lot of needs just in this group right here. Everybody's
got a story, don't they? Everybody's got a need. There's
something. There's something with everybody. Somebody is sick. Somebody is sorrowing. Somebody
needs help. Somebody needs to be pointed
to the Savior. Somebody needs some help. And
out of that crowd, the Savior called one specific man. To be
an object of his mercy. That's election. The Lord chose
to be gracious to one in that crowd. And that's the only hope
any sinner has. The only hope that you and I
have is that the Lord has chosen to be merciful to us. Our only
hope is that God will call us through the preaching of the
gospels they stand for. That's our only hope. Now the Lord knew
what he was going to do for this man, but this man didn't know.
The Lord said, stand forth. That's all he knew, and he stood
forth. Well, that's the second thing.
When God speaks to a sinner, not when the preacher speaks
to a sinner, when God speaks to a sinner, they hear the gospel
as a command. When the Lord says, stand forth,
everybody understands that's a command. The Lord didn't say,
now, would you mind being an example and standing forth? If
it's not too much trouble, would you step out? The Lord said,
stand forth. And the man stood forth because this is a command
from Christ. And the message of the gospel
is a commandment. The message of the gospel is
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a commandment to you,
it's a commandment to me, it's a commandment to everybody we
preach to. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. You just trust
Christ to obey the law for you. You trust him. His righteousness
is all you need to stand before God. His obedience to the law
is all you need to stand perfect before God. And he don't need
any help from you. Before conversion or after conversion.
It's all Christ obedience. Now this trusting. Trust Christ
that his sacrifice is all it takes to put your sin away. It's
trusting. Trust Christ. Trust His blood
alone. That's all it takes to cleanse
you and make you holy before God. It's the blood of Christ,
the blood of His sacrifice. You're not going to be made holy
because you start sinning less. No, no, no. You trust Christ
alone. Now, make it your goal. I mean,
I know you know this. Make it your goal not to sin,
but now you're going to. Trust that Christ, His blood
is all it takes to wash you from all of your sin. Just trust Him.
Now that's a commandment. This is not up for debate. This
is not up for negotiation. It's not an invitation. It's
a commandment. Trust Christ. Trust Christ. Don't look to the
law. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. Now listen to me. You won't find
the commandment of God in the law. Now you'll find a lot of
commandments in the law, won't you? But you won't find the commandment
The commandment of God is the commandment of the gospel. Trust
Christ. Believe on him. That's the commandment,
to believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, that brings me to the third
thing. The gospel command is impossible for us to obey. It's impossible, isn't it? But
with the command from God comes the ability to obey. Verse five,
and when he had looked round about on them with anger, being
grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith unto the man,
stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out, and
his hand was restored whole as the other. Now remember, God's
commandment, the commandment of the gospel is trust Christ
to do all the saving for you. Trust Christ to be all of your
salvation. You're not gonna contribute anything
to it, you just trust Christ, trust him completely. But our
problem is we have a spiritually dead nature. We cannot believe
Christ and we will not believe Christ. That's our nature. This
man with the withered hand, this hand was paralyzed probably for
his whole life. His hand had withered up, shrunk
up. It never did grow properly. The
bones didn't grow properly, the muscles, the ligaments, the tendons,
none of that grew properly. And what muscle and tendons and
things that they were there, just it had atrophy and shrunk
up and all those tendons and ligaments had just hardened because
they'd never been moved. It was physically impossible for
that man to stretch forth that hand. It's impossible. Heather, you'd never dream of
telling somebody to do that in physical therapy. They can't do it. And you can't make them. But
the Lord commanded him, stretch forth your hand. And with the
commandment came the ability. And that man did the physically
impossible and stretched forth his hand. And it was whole, just
like the other one. That man did something he could
not do. He didn't do it by his power.
He did it by the power of God. You see that? Now this congregation, every
person in this room, you've heard a lot of good preaching. I mean,
you have heard a lot of good preaching. You've heard from
many different men from all over the place tell you, believe on
Christ. They take God's word and they
show you Christ. They show you the glory of Christ
so that you believe on Him. You've heard this many, many
times. A true statement. If you would be saved, you must
believe on Christ. But again, our problem by nature
is we can't do it. We can't do it. We cannot believe
on Christ. But if you're here this morning
and you have trusted Christ, this will be your confession.
I trusted Christ by God-given ability. I did it by the power
of God. It wasn't by my power. It wasn't
by my decision. It was by the power of God. I
believe Christ because God gave me faith and I can't not believe
him. I believe Christ because God gave me the power, the ability
to become his child. And if you've not trusted Christ,
I pray that you will. I pray that you will. You don't
know how I pray for you. You don't know. And this is what
I've determined to do. I'm going to pray for you, and
I'm going to preach Christ to you as long as the Lord allows.
I'm not going to try to talk you into nothing. I'm not going
to try to talk you into it. I'm just going to pray for you,
and I'm going to preach Christ to you. If the Holy Spirit shows
you Christ, if you see Him, you'll do what you cannot do. You'll
trust Christ. That's my prayer for us. And
if you haven't believed Christ, I know when you will. I know
when you will. I already know it. You believe
Christ when God the Holy Spirit speaks to you and he commands
you to trust Christ. You're gonna hear this pastor
and you're gonna hear other preachers and other pastors tell you, you
believe on Christ and you won't do it. But when God the Holy
Spirit speaks to you, he's gonna command you and you're gonna
believe. You're gonna do something that
is impossible for you to do. You're gonna believe on Christ
by the power of God. Now that's the one and only way
any dead son of Adam's ever gonna believe on Christ, is if God
the Holy Spirit commands us. And with that commandment comes
the power, comes the ability. And you'll be like this man was
physically. Now, this man's got a perfect hand. That hand was
all withered up and just completely useless his whole life. Now it's
perfect. Why? He can work, he can tie
his shoes, he can button a shirt, he can, I mean, there's so many
things this man could do. He's got it, that hand's old. God, the Holy Spirit gives you
faith in Christ. You will have perfect, complete
spiritual life. It'll be perfect and you'll never
lose it. Now you'll still sin, you'll still be grieved with
yourself, but that life that God gives you is perfect. It's
perfect. And that's what God's grace always
produces. Now we saw what man's works,
what man's self-righteousness, what does that produce? This
is what grace produces. Which one do you want? Oh, I want God's grace, don't
you? I want His grace. I want His
grace to save me. I want His grace in my heart
to direct my walk, to make me loving and care about you, to
care about others. Oh, we need God's grace. It's
just constant, constant need, isn't it? But that's what happens
when God saves a sinner. And I'd a whole lot rather have
God save me than me try to save myself. How about you? All right, I pray the Lord bless
that too.