Turn with me to Mark chapter
8. We're going to be looking at verses
10 through 21. And let's read through those
verses. Straightway he entering into
a ship with his disciples, and came into the parts of Dalmanutha. And the Pharisees came forth
and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign from heaven,
tempting him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit
and said, why does this generation seek after a sign? Verily I say
unto you, there shall no sign be given unto this generation. And he left them. And entering
into the ship again, departed to the other side. Now the disciples
had forgotten to take bread, neither had they in the ship
with them more than one loaf. And he charged them saying, take
heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the leaven
of Herod. And they reasoning among themselves,
saying it is because we have no bread. When Jesus knew it,
he saith unto them, why reason ye, because ye have no bread? Perceive ye not yet? Neither understand? Have ye your
heart yet hardened? Having eyes, see ye not? Having
ears, hear ye not? And do ye not remember? When
I break the five loaves among 5,000, how many baskets full
of fragments took ye up? And they say, 12. And when the
seven among 4,000, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up?
And they said, seven. And he saith unto them, how is
it that ye do not understand? I titled the message this morning,
The Poison of Vipers. Our Lord and his disciples were
in Bethsaida. Now if you picture the Sea of
Galilee, if you've got a map here in front of you, and you're
going up the coast, and up here is the Sea of Galilee, and you're
looking at the Sea of Galilee, just pretend like that's a clock,
just like you're looking at that clock back there, representing
the Sea of Galilee. Well, they were in Bethsaida,
which is up here at 12 o'clock. They were all the way to the
top of the sea. And our Lord, you remember they
took ship and just went a little ways, but they went out into
a wilderness, and there was no bread there, there was nothing
there, and therefore he had to feed the multitude. Well, he
was going counterclockwise around the sea, and they were just a
little ways off of the beach, and they got in the ship and
went down toward this wilderness so they could rest. And then
from there, he comes to Dalmanutha. Now, Dalmanutha's down here at
about 9 o'clock, still going counterclockwise. So they left
from wherever they were up here on that sea, and they came all
the way down here to Dalmanutha. I looked the name up thinking
something might be significant about it, but I couldn't find
anything on the name itself. except to say it was a strange
name to me. It wasn't familiar at all. And
so I began to look it up on the maps, and it's the same name
also as Magdala. And then it has many other names
that's used in scripture to describe that same city. And having arrived here at his
destination, the Son of God is met by a group of Pharisees. The Pharisees were separationless. You've never seen the Pharisees,
or very seldom seen the Pharisees among big crowds. They were separationists. They always traveled in a clique. They always gathered together
by themselves. And if they entered into the
synagogue, they sat apart from everybody else. They were separationless. and they distanced themselves
from other religious factions. And they were self-righteous
men. He tells us that over and over
and over. They were self-righteous men,
believing themselves to obtain God's favor, not only by blood
relationship to Abraham, but by their own deeds according
to the law, they gained favor with God, and especially that
of circumcision. And they were well known for
their zeal and commitment to the law. And they were feared
by many for their aggressive acts toward any who would oppose
them. You remember when the Lord converted
the Apostle Paul, he had been down and got papers to go out
and persecute Christians. They were very aggressive. Anybody
who confronted them, they were gonna suffer. And they justified
those things that they did, saying that they were doing these things
for the Lord. And John the Baptist, as well
as our Lord, openly called them a generation of vipers. He called
them snakes, vipers, who would not and could not believe
and who would not repent of their sins, nor come to Christ as the
physician of the sick. You remember he told those Pharisees,
he said, the whole need not the physician, but the sick. He said,
you go learn what this means. I'll have mercy and not sacrifice.
I'm not come to call the righteous, the self-righteous, but sinners
to repentance. And a Pharisee, according to
Paul's testimony, was the chief of sinners. Isn't that what he
said? He said the Lord saved him. He
was a Pharisee of the Pharisee. And he said on another occasion,
I was the chief of sinners. Now this, not only did Paul say
that, if it were just Paul voicing his opinion, you might say, well,
everybody thinks he's the chief of sinners when the Lord convicts
him of sin. And that's true enough. But this
is language inspired by the Holy Ghost. And so I know that when
he said he was the chief of sinners, he meant it. He meant it. And he meant for us to acknowledge
it. So what does that mean? If this Pharisee is the chief
of sinners, what does that mean? Well, that means that homosexuality
would be a step up for him. A step up. A child molester would
be a lesser criminal offense than what he's doing. I'm talking
about to God, not to man. In God's sight. A murderer, that
would be a lesser crime than Phariseeism. And he was met by
this group of vipers. He wasn't met with needy sinners
as he often was even out in the wilderness. But here he's met
by these vipers. He's met here by these Pharisees,
a band of religious zealots. And they didn't come out there
because of their need of them. They didn't come out there to
acknowledge him as the son of God. They come out to try him,
to test him, to confront him, and to keep him from coming into
their land. point out some things here to
you as we go through these verses. And I want you to see these men
for what they are and to avoid them like the plague. Because of this coronavirus that
we're hearing so much about, we're being warned not to have
much social contact with others. And this is exactly what our
Lord told his disciples when they entered into the ship. about
these Pharisees, avoid them, leave them alone. Don't go around
them. These men came to the Son of
God, our Savior and Lord, and questioned his authority and
motives to be there. Now I find that amazing. I find that absolutely amazing. Can you imagine such a thing? The gospel to the Pharisee is
an affront. Now what does that mean? We don't even use that in our
language today, do we? What is an affront? I looked it up. Here's what it
means. It means a face-to-face confrontation. That's what it means. Eyeball-to-eyeball,
nose-to-nose. It's a face-to-face confrontation. It's an open and public challenge. It's an intentional offense and
question mark concerning their offices and officers and religious professions and
their hope before God. When Jesus Christ came to this
place, it was His presence there was a confrontation to these
Pharisees. His presence put a giant question
mark on all that they did, on their worship, on their teaching,
on their life, and on their claims. He didn't have to say anything.
His being there was an offense to them, which is what instigated
this band of Pharisees going out to meet Him. And I'm going
to tell you something. There's nothing more disgusting
to our Lord than an attitude of smug, self-righteous, religious
hypocrisy. It's disgusting to Him. These men presuming themselves
to be righteous and in full favor with God, gave no consideration
whatsoever for their need of mercy and grace, nor to the need
of the citizens in that land. And that's what our Lord told
them. He told them on many occasions, but on one in particular, He
said, the whole need not a physician. You don't have any need of me.
You see no need for the Son of God to come. You see no need
for one to establish a righteousness for you. You have your own. Rather than to receive Him with
thanksgiving, they question Him, demanding some heavenly side.
Tempting Him is what it says. Tempting both God and His Son. Now I want you to listen to me
for just a minute. I'm going to give you some arguments
to that. That generation was so unworthy of God's mercy and
grace. They were so unworthy of God's
mercy and grace, demanded a sign from him who had already given
them signs. They demanded it. You're not
coming any further until you make manna fall, you turn water
into wine. We want to see a heavenly sign. And the people who were demanding
that so easily received the ungodly traditions of their fathers without
any evidence at all. Now that's what I see in religion.
A man stands up behind a pulpit and with no verification of the
word of God whatsoever begins to preach a false doctrine and
men swallow it like candy. They don't need a sign. They
don't need any evidence. Don't need anything. Well, it
seems right to me. But preach to them the gospel
of God's sovereign grace and they want evidence. They demand
evidence. We want some sign from heaven. We want some verification from
heaven. It's already been verified, honey. Signs have already been given. But it's ever the way of false
religion to demand some outward evidence of the heathen. He's got to have an explanation. He wants an explanation. The
Jews require a sign, Paul said, and the Greeks seek after wisdom. And they questioned with him,
seeking a sign from heaven. The scripture said, tempting
him. Now to tempt one is to entice one to commit an unwise or immoral
act. That's what the dictionary says.
And especially by the promise of reward. And it means also
to test one or to try one by demanding some confirmation. Now here's what I want you to
hope you come out of this with and take it home with you. Faith
rests its confidence in Christ upon the testimony of Holy Scripture
alone. Alone. Now this is what's dangerous
when a man starts testifying about his experiences. He may
very well have had an experience. It may very well be a true experience. But that's not how faith is born. Faith is not born of an experience.
Faith is born from the word of God. Being born again, not of
corruptible seed, but incorruptible by the word of God. It's born
from scripture. This is the seed. This is the
seed. You say, well, I thought it was
born from the Gospel. Well, this is the Word which
by the Gospel is preached unto you. I'm not preaching at all
if I can't verify what I'm saying from the Word of God. Faith rests its confidence in
Christ upon the testimony of Holy Scripture alone. And if
the revelation of Christ depends on any kind of outward experience,
then the Word of God can be interpreted any way a
man wants to. Isn't that right? And this is the mark of Satan
in our day in Pentecostalism. They believe that God speaks
to an individual and that individual in turn speaks to the people. and he speaks in some heavenly
language that nobody can understand, and then another stands up and
interprets for him these things. Well, if that's so, then there
is no sufficiency in the Word of God and no need for it. You
see what I'm saying? And this is my whole problem.
Without the necessity of preaching, men are going about saying, well,
the Holy Spirit reveals the Gospel to a man In his closet, in his
car, out on the lake, up on the... No, the Holy Spirit reveals the
gospel to you. This is the revelation, this
is the gospel. And when the Holy Spirit does
that, he takes a man who sets these truths forth from the Word
of God and he empowers men to believe, enables them to believe. Enables that man to preach in
the power of God's Spirit. While all these things sound
good, and they're appealing to the flesh, it just destroys the
validity of the scriptures, and at best, questions the sufficiency
of the word of God. Give us a sign. God already gave
them signs. And these are men who knew the
Old Testament. These are men who could quote
the Old Testament, and yet they were blind to the gospel. Listen
to this. This is Isaiah chapter seven,
verse 14. The Lord himself shall give you
a sign. A virgin shall conceive and bear
a son and shall call himself Immanuel, God with us. There's your sign. Exodus 31 says the Sabbath was
a sign that we might know that He is the Lord who does sanctify
us. Sanctify the Sabbath day. Well,
the Sabbath day is Christ, isn't it? We're sanctified in Him once
for all. He's our Sabbath, and this is
the sign that we might know that He is the Lord who does sanctify
us, and we see Christ as our Sabbath. In Isaiah 19 verse 20, the Lord
spake of an altar being set up in Egypt for a sign. That altar
is no less than a son of God, who in the providence of God,
they took him to Egypt while Herod was trying to destroy him.
And he lived there in Egypt that the scriptures might be fulfilled.
Well, he's our altar, isn't he? Sure he is, and this altar, was
set up in Egypt, and many from Egypt and Assyria and those areas
over there come to know the Lord. God's given us a book full of
signs. He's prophesied a detailed picture of the coming Messiah.
One man said it was a garment that would bespet one man. All
those pictures and signs and descriptions of the Messiah that
would come, all woven together, make a garment that'll just fit
one man, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. Keep this on your, I'm never
gonna, by the grace of God, I'm never gonna quit saying this.
Salvation is in a person, and that person is Jesus of Nazareth,
who is the Christ. The gospels not say this, Do
this, feel this, or give this. The gospel's look and live. Look
unto Him, all ye ends of the earth, and be ye saved. The gospel
is He did it all. The gospel is it is finished. The gospel is the person of Jesus
Christ, who He is, and why He came, and what He did, and where
He's at. Eternal life, the scripture said,
is to know Him and the power of His resurrection. And the
one man in all the world that could have done them some good,
they questioned His authority. They questioned His very presence.
And then think about this. These Pharisees were but a small
segment of that country's population. But that country allowed them
to come out and represent them. before the Lord. And then the second thing I'd
have you to consider is the sighing of our Lord. The sighing of our
Lord at their unbelief and what followed as a result of it. Those who will not receive, hear,
believe on, or rest in the Lord Jesus Christ, the scripture said,
shall be damned. shall be damned. That's a frightening
thing, isn't it? Those who believe not, those who exercise no faith, those who will not submit to
Him, bow to Him, own Him, follow Him, glory in Him, rest in Him,
shall be damned. There's no hope for them anywhere
else. Salvation's in Christ. There's no alternatives. There's
none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must
be saved. If you read carefully in the
first part of Hebrews 10, Paul establishes Christ as the sole
means of salvation, not the law. The law had nothing to do with
it. Just pictured him. He's the means of salvation and
the very heart of the revelation of the Holy Ghost and the only
way into the presence of God for a sinner. And having established these
things and he says to them, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves
together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another
and so much the more as you see the day approaching. Now watch
this. For if we sin willfully after
we have received the knowledge of the truth, that is, if we
go on in our rebellion and unbelief seeking something else, seeking
some further evidence, seeking some experience, seeking some
feeling, if we go on in our rebellion and unbelief seeking something
else, There remaineth no more sacrifice for sins for you. You mean he's never gonna give
them an opportunity? No, that's not what that says.
They left. They left the only one who could
save them looking for something else. And he's telling you, there
remaineth no more sacrifice for sin. There is no sacrifice for
sins in anything else. It's all in him. You'll have
him or die in your sins. The one sacrifice for sin is
in Christ. And if you leave him, there's
no more sacrifice for sin. Now you might obtain the spirit
of zeal. They had zeal. Paul said, I bear
them witness. They have a zeal of God, but
it's not according to knowledge. You may be unable to speak in
some unknown tongue. You may become a great man among
men like Billy Graham. But for you, there remaineth
no more sacrifice received. For you, there are no high priests
after the order of Melchizedek. For you, there's no righteousness.
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness. For you, there's
no being led by the Spirit. To reject Christ is to reject
everything God has for sinners. And therefore, he warns them
about their doctrine. And our Lord says two things.
The first is a question, the second is a statement. That's
the only thing he said to those Pharisees. He let them ramble
on and like religious men do, firing questions at him, demanding
things, questioning his authority and all these things. He just
stood there and listened to them. And then he said two things.
Here's the first thing. He said, why does this generation
seek after a sign? Are you questioning the purpose
of God? Christ said, I came not of myself. I came not to please myself,
but I come to do the will of him that sent me. He's here because
God sent him. God sent him, this is according
to the will of God, and he said in the volume of the book, it's
written of me, I come to do thy will, oh God. He's here on behalf
of God. He's here to accomplish the purpose
of God. The will of God, to manifest
the love of God, and the justice of God, and the righteousness
of God, and the holiness of God. He's here on God's account. And they're putting a question
mark on it. Why do you seek after a sign?
My birth was a sign. Everywhere I moved was a sign.
My baptism was a sign. The heavenly dove descending
and resting upon me. The giving of the spirit to me
without measure. All these things were signs.
My ministry is a sign. The miracles that I've done is
a sign. Why does this generation seek after a sign? And then he says this, no sign
gonna be given to you. God's not gonna give you a sign.
You can demand all you want, you can look all you want, you
can search all you want, you can wait all you want, you're
not gonna get a sign. The only sign you're gonna get
is that man born of Mary, who lived under the law, who died,
and on the third day was resurrected, and he's seated at the right
hand of God. That's the only sign you're gonna get. He told them on another occasion,
he said, an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign,
and no sign shall be given it except to the prophet Jonah,
who was three days and three nights in the whale's belly.
Even so, the Son of God is going to be three days and three nights
in the heart of the earth. That's the only sign you're going
to get. No sign is going to be given
to you. And then they got back into the ship and they departed
to the other side. It's the only thing he said in
that country. Never a man spake like this man.
The words that he spoke could have healed everybody in that
land. Words that he spoke could have birthed thousands. But the only thing that they
allowed him to say in that country was that they sought after a
sign and why and that no sign was going to be given there.
And he got back in the ship and departed. And then the Lord turned
to his disciples and he said, take heed, beware of the leaven
of the Pharisee and the leaven of Herod. Now, without getting
in a big long explanation, what he's saying here about Herod
has to do with the Herodians, another sect of the Jews. And
they believed Herod was the Messiah. And so they defended him. But
the leaven of the Pharisees is his doctrine. The leaven of the
Pharisees is his venom by which he poisons his disciples. And well did Paul describe them
when he said, both Jew and Gentile, he said, I prove that they're
all under sin. And he begins to describe them
and he said, the poison of asps is under their lips. They're
vipers. They're vipers. And so what am
I saying to you? I'm saying the same thing our
Lord said to his disciples. Do not treat their doctrine as
if it was some small thing. You see a rattlesnake there,
you're not just going to walk up and reach down and start petting
a rattlesnake. You know you're going to get
bit. And when you get bit, you're going to get poisoned. It's a
viper. He's going to bite you. But we'll walk up to a Pharisee
and talk to him all afternoon. You better beware. They're biters. They'll bite you. Don't treat
their doctrine as if it was some small thing, some harmless word
spoken in ignorance. It's poison to your souls. And the disciples were so ignorant
of what our Lord said to them that they thought he was talking
about their forgetfulness. to bring extra bread. Be warned. These are vipers. Leave them
alone. Just leave them alone. Don't
get locked into their discussions. Don't get locked into their,
well, here's what I want from you. You want, you're demanding
things from me? A dead man? Going to demand from
the living? I don't think so. I don't think
so. May the Lord use my pitiful attempts
to exhort you on this thing this morning and teach you, for Christ's
sake. Thank you.