Let's take our Bibles now and
turn to the Gospel according to Mark. The Gospel according to Mark
chapter three. We'll be looking at the first
six verses, Mark chapter three. Let's go ahead and read through
these verses. And he, that is Christ, entered
again into the synagogue and there was a man there which
had a withered hand. I just out of curiosity looked
that up on the internet and There are several different things
that could happen from birth defects and things, but mostly
it's caused by an incurable disease, and I won't even attempt to pronounce
the word, but it draws the the hand up, it won't develop,
those things stay the same, and it just draws the hand up. So
this, in all likelihood, this is what this man hand, he had
a withered hand, it was all drawn up. And they watched him, not
the man with the withered hand, but Christ, who had entered into
the synagogue. They watched him, now watch this,
whither he would heal him on the Sabbath day, that they might
accuse him. What an awful thing it is to
enter in, the synagogue was a place of worship. What an awful thing it would
be to enter into a place of worship would nothing else in your mind
but to try to accuse the one who was there leading in worship. And that's what was going on
here. 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 to them, that is
those who were watching him to accuse him, 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
they held their peace because if they answered good, then they
would be giving sanction to what he was about to do. And if they
answered evil, it would show and expose their ignorance of
what the Sabbatei actually demanded. So it's kind of a catch-22. And
he just shut them up with that question. And they had nothing
to say. They held their peace. And when he 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. and straightway took counsel
with the Herodians against him, that is against Christ, how they
might destroy him. I titled the lesson this morning,
Seeing and Being Seen. Seeing and Being Seen. Now let's
begin here. He entered again into the synagogue. What is a synagogue? That was the Jewish house of
worship. It was a building, no different
than this building or any other building. It may have had, because
they were such traditionalists, it may have had a certain look
to it, certain shape, certain design, I don't know. But it
was just a building. That's all it was, just a building.
And what made this synagogue significant was not the building,
but who came into it. A building just a building until
Christ enters into it. The fact that it's beautiful.
The fact that it has a rapport about it. because of the architecture,
stained glass windows, or the pipe organ within. We did a whole
class trip one time, across the street from the high school I
went to, to see a church with a pipe organ. And all sitting
there, and we ooed and aahed over this big pipe organ, and
they had the organist play, and all that stuff, and we just ooed
and aahed over it. It's not the rapport for its
architecture, stained glass windows, or pipe organs, or candlelight. All of these things have no spiritual
value at all. The only value to these things
is to excite your emotions. That's what these things are
good for, to make you ooh and ah. A building that is used for worship,
now I want you to hear me. is sanctified by the presence
of our Lord, of His Spirit, and of His Gospel. That's what sanctifies
the place. If there is a sanctuary inside
the building, it's sanctified by Him. It's not sanctified because it
says Church on the sign, or Baptist on the sign, or Grace on the
sign. It's sanctified by his presence, and that's what we
pray for, isn't it? Otherwise, we're just spinning
our wheel. We're just meeting here for nothing. It's his presence that gives
the building value. Think about it. It's his presence that gives it appeal to true
worshippers. His presence. Synagogue was just one of many
hundred that filled the landscape, the cities, and countries thereabout. But what made this one special
was who entered into it. He entered again. This was the second time into
this synagogue. He entered into the synagogue.
And then secondly, I want you to see this in Mark chapter three,
verse two. They watched him. They watched
him. Who did? The Pharisees. They watched him. Their eyes
was focused on him. They weren't smiling. They weren't
rejoicing. They were watching him with stone
faces peering down their noses at him. Why did they watch him? Well,
it wasn't to worship him. It wasn't to worship him. It
wasn't to learn something about God, and it wasn't because they
expected to receive anything. They watched him, it says, that
they might accuse him. They watched him knowing that
it was the Sabbath. It was a holy day. And they hoped
he'd do something to break it or compromise it so they could
expose him for the fraud that they believed he was. Not only did they believe him
to be a fraud, but they were also jealous of the people's
favor. People flocked around him to
hear him. People came to him with hope
and expectation. Now they used to come to the
Pharisees, not with hope and expectation, but they came because
they believed they were the representatives of God. But they knew this man
was. Never a man spake like this man. And these men were jealous
of him. They were jealous of him. And he taught contrary to their
traditions. That's another reason why they
looked at him and wanted to accuse him. He taught a doctrine contrary
to what they believed. They sought to defame him and
make him look bad in front of the crowd and make a mockery
of him. And this is the same thing they
do today and have always done to anyone who would dare preach
the gospel. Before they stoned Stephen over
in Acts chapter 7 and verse 51, He said to them, he said, you
stiff-necked and uncircumcised of heart and ears, you do always
resist the Holy Ghost. As your fathers did, so do you. You do the same thing. Which
of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted and have slain
them which showed before the coming of the just one of whom
you now have been the murderers and betrayers? And when he said
that, when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and
gnashed on him with their teeth. That's hatred, isn't it? Oh, my soul. How did they watch him? They
watched him with murder in their eyes. Murder in their hearts. They looked on him to accuse
him. And then thirdly, and I want
you to see this, right in the middle of all this,
Christ walks into this synagogue and here's these Pharisees, men
of repute, men of fame, at least fleshly honor. And all of this was going on
and our Lord knew all of these things. He could read the thoughts
and intents of your heart. He knew all this was going on,
and he looks at the object that brought him there. He looks at
this poor sinner. He singles him out of the crowd.
He looked into the eyes of a needy sinner, and he had him, he said,
stand forth. Stand forth. He'll always command
chosen sinners to stand forth. Those he's undertaken to save
and to represent before God and men, he'll have the world to
see this glorious work. This divine act of grace for
which the world was created. When the time of his great love
comes to chosen sinners, he makes the object of his grace to be
seen. He makes him to stand forth.
He singles them out of the crowd and he deals with them as if
they were the only one left on earth. All of these things going
on in this synagogue, all these people, you know there was a
huge crowd gathered. Some of them inside, some of
them outside. But the Lord focused his attention
first on what brought him there. This poor sinner given to him
by the Father before the foundation of the world. Well, how did our Lord look on
this man? Well, he looked on him as he was. He didn't see something that
wasn't there. He saw what was there. He saw him as he was,
deformed. Sinners, because of our religious
upbringing and because of the way this world looks at things,
because of those basic principles that all men universally accept,
because of these things, the sinner always tries to reform
himself before his coming to God. He always does. He tries to reform himself. They
try to reform themselves because they want God to see them in
a better light than what they actually, than the light they
actually are seen in. They don't wanna be seen in a
better, I don't wanna be seen as a sinner. But the best light to be seen
in is the light of the truth. That's the best light. And the truth is, we're sinners. We're all deformed by an incurable
disease. That's the sinner. His very nature
causes his deformities. He has problems he can't fix.
He's beyond human cure. And Christ saw this chosen sinner
as he was and he made him to stand forth so everybody else
could see him as he was. And then he looked on him like
this. He saw him as he was, a sinner,
hopeless, helpless sinner. And he saw him in God's everlasting
covenant of grace. He saw him just like David saw
Mephibosheth. Poor Mephibosheth, lame on his
feet, ruined by the fall, nurse dropped him. And he was lame. He was lame by the fall, same
as we are. And there he stood before David,
and all his relatives had been put to death. Nobody left but Mephibosheth.
But David made a covenant with Jonathan. And for Jonathan's
sake, he looked on Mephibosheth, and he said, get him a change
of clothing. You put the royal robe on him,
and he gonna sit with me at my table, and he gonna eat there.
You think about that. Christ saw this man as an object
in God's everlasting covenant of grace. He saw him with covenant
eyes. Covenant promise, covenant mercies
and grace. He saw him through the eyes of
assurity, mercies promised, appropriations made, love manifested, grace
shown. How did he see him? He saw him
in union with himself. That's how he seen him. And that's
how the Father seen him. And then fourthly, verse five.
Then he turns round about on them with anger. He looked round
about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their
hearts. Those Pharisees who had been
watching him so closely, all of a sudden found themselves
being watched by him. Well, how did he see them? He saw them with piercing eyes. Oh, I tell you what. You've never been looked on until
he looks on you. He looked on them with piercing
eyes, eyes, the scripture said, able to divide asunder between
soul and spirit. How did He look on them? He looked
on them with discerning eyes, able to perceive the thoughts
and intents of their heart. He looked at them and said, is
it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days or evil? Well, they couldn't
answer that. Either way, would have hung them
out to dry, so they couldn't answer him, so they held their
peace. How did he see them? He saw them
with angry eyes. He looked on them with anger. I tell you, it's one thing to
know that Christ looks on you in mercy and grace. It's another
thing to think that the King of Glory looks on you with anger. He'll judge this world in righteousness
by that man. He looked on them with anger.
I can't imagine being looked at by the Son of God to judge
of all men with angry eyes. How did he see them? He saw them
with righteous eyes. He saw all their righteousnesses
as filthy rags. He saw through their pretense.
He saw through their play in church. He saw through their
self-righteousness. He looked at them through righteous
eyes. And then let me add this. He
looked on them with patient eyes. Patient eyes. Eyes willing to
tolerate them for a brief time for the good of the man who now
stood in front of him. He didn't destroy them immediately,
tolerated them. Isn't that why God allowed this
world to continue in the garden? Did He not look with patient
eyes? Peter said, the Lord is not slack concerning His promise,
as some men count slackness, but His long-suffering to usward
not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Our Lord said to the Pharisees
on another occasion, I give unto them eternal life, and they'll
never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. There was a man who Family dominated
this little church up north for years. It's always that way in
these little churches. Somebody's family dominates. Might have started out in a good
light, but somewhere down the road a relative took charge and
he's going to carry the family torch, but he don't know God. And that was the case in this
little church. God sent him a pastor, a true
pastor, and they didn't like him a little bit. That pastor ruled because God
gave him the rule over those people. And he gave those people
his heart, and his heart to them. And so that man left. He got mad and left. And he owned
everything. He owned all the land around
his church. And so every time they'd have a meeting, he'd be
out there in his tractor plowing and disking and old loud tractors,
just purposely trying to disrupt the services, do everything he
could do to get them to disassemble, get rid of that man. But it didn't
work. He stayed and preached. And finally,
one October day, service ended, and everybody came out of the
church, and they were standing there on the porch. Rejoicing
over the message and here's this farmer and he's out there and
he's got about seven or eight tractors with wagons behind them
and they're loaded down, just loaded down with the crops. And he said, hey preacher. And
he said, yes sir. He said, I've defied you every
time I've had a chance. I've made a mockery out of your
services And he said, now how do you explain this? You say
you're God's man, all right, how do you explain this bumper
crop? And every eye turned back to
the pastor, and the pastor quietly answered and said, God doesn't
settle his accounts in October. God didn't settle his accounts
this morning in that synagogue, but it's coming, it's coming. And here's the last thing I want
you to see about this text. I want you to see the results
of their hardness of heart. Mark 3.6 says, and the Pharisees
went forth straightway, and took counsel with the Herodians against
him, how they might destroy him. Now I read a little bit about
this, and I'm gonna try to make this explanation as simple as
I can. The Herodians were a sect of
the Jews who thought and looked for a king like David to be raised
up and deliver them out of their bondage. And some, for whatever
reason, believed that Herod was gonna be that king. Even though
they couldn't prove his genealogy, he wasn't a relative of David. But they thought that Herod was
that king. And so they started calling them
Herodians. Herodians. And the Jews despised
the Herodians. They despised them. These Pharisees
wouldn't have anything to do with the Herodians. But after
what Christ said that morning, and this is what I want you to
understand, there's no vacuum After you come into the presence
of the Lord and hear his gospel, there's not a vacuum. Something's
gonna happen. Something's gonna transpire.
You're either gonna be called into his marvelous light, or
you're gonna grow worse than what you were before you came
in the door. One or the other's gonna happen.
You're not in limbo. These men heard and they rejected
it. They despised it. They wouldn't
even consider it. So what did they do? Well, they
didn't go back and meet with themselves. They went over here
to a people that they absolutely despised and joined themselves
together with him and took counsel how they might destroy the Lord
Jesus Christ. And really and truly, isn't that
what men do? who hear the gospel and despise
it, they want to destroy that message because that message
is Christ. And they can't get their hands
on him, so they're gonna take the pastor, they're gonna take
the preacher, they're gonna take the man that's standing before
them, and they're gonna destroy him. And that's why God tells us over
in the book of James, the Holy Spirit tells us, he said, you
be careful how you hear. You be careful how you hear.
All right, thank you.