WWUTT 2143 Jesus Heals on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1-12)

Jesus’ Opposition, the Sabbath, and the Demons’ Confession

Jesus performed a miracle and healed a man on the Sabbath. And instead of being amazed by this miraculous work, Jesus' opponents wanted to destroy him because they hated righteousness. When we understand the text.

Introduction to WWUTT and Mark 3

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Hey, once again, it's Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the gospel of Mark, we are on to chapter three today. And I'm gonna begin by reading verses one through 12 out of the Legacy Standard Bible. Hear the word of the Lord.

And he entered again into a synagogue and a man was there with a withered hand. And they were watching him to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, get up and come forward.

And he said to them, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill? But they kept silent. And after looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, he said to the man, stretch out your hand.

And he stretched it out and his hand was restored. And the Pharisees went out and immediately began taking counsel together with the Herodians against him as to how they might destroy him. And Jesus withdrew to the sea with his disciples.

And a great multitude from Galilee followed and from Judea and from Jerusalem and from Idumea and from beyond the Jordan in the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon, a great number of people heard of all that he was doing and came to him.

And he told his disciples that a boat should stand ready for him because of the crowd so that they would not crowd him for he had healed many with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around him in order to touch him.

And whenever the unclean spirits were seeing him, they would fall down before him and cry out saying, you are the son of God. And he earnestly warned them not to tell who he was. Now, the reason why I would include that last portion, even with the miracle that Jesus had performed in the synagogue is because none of those people acknowledged who he was.

The Pharisees didn't acknowledge. As a matter of fact, they plotted to destroy him. Then the people who came and wanted to be healed by him, they wouldn't confess who he was, but the demons did. The unclean spirits knew exactly who he was, proclaiming that he is the son of God.

And that statement even goes with what we had just read at the end of chapter two, where Jesus had said, the son of man is Lord, even of the Sabbath, the son of man is Lord, but he is Lord even of the Sabbath.

And here the demons are proclaiming that he is the son of God, though many others are missing that Jesus has been sent by God. In fact, is God himself. That's really what that statement means to say that he is the son of God.

The Sabbath Controversy and the Pharisees’ Hardness of Heart

So let's come back to verse one here of chapter three. We continue with this Sabbath theme here. Remember yesterday we read about the Sabbath. It's kind of unfortunate that there's a chapter break here because the end of chapter two, going into the beginning of chapter three really goes together with Jesus and his disciples on the Sabbath.

And the Pharisees were accusing the disciples because they were plucking heads of grain on the Sabbath. So that constituted work in their eyes. And here we are again on the Sabbath with Jesus going into the synagogue and there's a man who is lame, lame in his hand anyway, has a withered hand.

And the Pharisees are all watching him to see if he's gonna heal this man on the Sabbath because they want to accuse him. So still continuing with that same attitude of the Pharisees that we had seen at the end of chapter two.

So again, beginning in verse one, he entered again into a synagogue and a man was there with a withered hand. Now, when we're talking about a withered hand here, we're talking about an unusable hand. Everybody who looks at this hand knows this guy has a serious deformity and whether he was born with it or whether it was some sort of illness that had struck him and resulted in this crippled hand, nonetheless, his hand was non-functional.

There was no use for that hand. But apparently the Pharisees know of Jesus being a healer because they're watching him to see if he's gonna heal on the Sabbath. I mean, isn't this astonishing? They're not even amazed that this man can perform this miracle.

They're actually seething in their hearts that he would do this. Again, verse two, and they were watching him to see if he would heal them on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him. I can't even imagine that.

I cannot imagine that level of hatred, of disgust in my heart to see a man who's able to heal someone else. Why would I hate that? That would be incredible. I'm gonna be checking myself. Do I have any maladies or something like that?

I can go to him and he can heal my sicknesses and my diseases. This is an amazing thing. This is incredible. He's gonna clear out all of our sanatoriums or whatever you would call them back in that day, hospitals, they didn't have hospitals.

He's gonna heal all the sick. What an incredible thing. This is surely the power of God that is at work in this man. Of course, they don't know him as the son of God yet. They don't recognize that yet, but still seeing that the power of God truly has to be at work in him.

But how do the Pharisees respond to this? They hate it. They are so angry at him that they're looking for a reason to accuse him, even though he would perform this miraculous thing and do good for another, they see something evil in it.

What a wicked heart. What wicked hearts they had. In verse three, and he said to the man with the withered hand, get up and come forward. And he said to them, so he's looking at those who are now waiting for Jesus to do something so that they can accuse him.

And he said to all of them, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save a life or to kill? But they kept silent. Now it kind of sounds like Jesus is giving them options here, like a contrast, which should you do on the Sabbath?

Should you save a person or should you kill them? I don't know that that's necessarily the way that he's presenting the question. I think it's more a matter of, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath?

Can you do either one on the Sabbath? Not can you do this one and not that one, but rather can you do both? Going back to the account that we read in Numbers 15, I read this yesterday when we were in chapter two, and we read about the Sabbath breaker, the guy that was out there who was gathering sticks.

He was gathering wood on the Sabbath day. And those who found him gathering wood brought him near to Moses and Aaron and to the congregation and they put him in custody because it had not been declared what should be done to him.

Now they saw this happening on the Sabbath and they seized him on the Sabbath. They stopped him in the middle of the work that he was doing on the Sabbath. And God said that this man needs to be put to death, but it needed to happen outside the camp.

So they took him outside the camp and executed him. Now, everything the way it's laid out there in Numbers 15 looks like that this happened on the same day. It doesn't say that a day transpired or we're gonna put this man to trial and then however many weeks go by before he's finally put to death.

It has the appearance of all of this happening, all of this transpiring on the same day. So is it lawful to kill on the Sabbath? Yes, it is. But if a person is going to be executed on the Sabbath, is it therefore not also lawful to save someone on the Sabbath?

Isn't it good to save a person's life? So again, the question, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath? To save a life or to kill? And this is also indicting them who are looking at Jesus because he knows their hearts and they mean harm to him.

So their attitude is harm for Jesus. And is it gonna be lawful for you to mean to wanna kill me on the Sabbath day? Why not rather have in your hearts a desire to save somebody, to do good to someone else?

And then verse five, after looking around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, he said to the man, stretch out your hand, and he stretched it out and his hand was restored. And the Pharisees went out and immediately began taking counsel together with the Herodians against him as to how they might destroy him.

Now that's a pretty astonishing statement because the Pharisees did not get along with the Herodians. They didn't like the Herodians. The Sadducees tolerated them because the Herodians provided the Sadducees with their power and authority.

They had common political interests along with the Romans. So the Sadducees and the Herodians and the Romans, they would all be in cahoots with one another just for the purpose of political advancement.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, who really represented more the common man, they didn't care for the Herodians at all, but they had such a hatred for Jesus. They had a shared hatred, the Pharisees and the Herodians, that the Pharisees were willing to hold their noses and be in cahoots with the Herodians if it meant that they could destroy Jesus together.

Truly wicked, truly evil to see this. That Jesus, out of his love and compassion for others, was healing sicknesses and diseases and doing things that the Pharisees wouldn't even lift a finger to help a person do.

They weren't caring for the sick. Of course, they couldn't heal the sick, but they weren't caring for the sick either. And here, Jesus is doing this, and they have nothing but hatred in their hearts for Jesus.

It was back in Matthew 12, 11, where Jesus said, what man is there among you who has a sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable then is a man than a sheep?

Jesus’ Compassion for the Crowds and the Gentiles

So then it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. In the next section here, Jesus continues out of his compassionate heart to care for the people and to heal them. Verse seven, Jesus withdrew to the sea with his disciples and a great multitude from Galilee followed and from Judea and from Jerusalem and from Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon, a great number of people heard of all that he was doing and came to him.

Now, all of these places listed, these are not just all Israelites or Jews or Hebrews. These are pagans as well. These are Gentiles that are coming to Jesus, hearing about all that he does, and they want to be healed by him.

So you have Judea, you have the multitude from Galilee and Judea, that's kind of North and South, and then from Jerusalem, so the main city in that region, then from Idumea and beyond the Jordan, beyond the Jordan was Gentile territory and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon, those locations definitely were pagan.

A great number of people heard of all that he was doing and came to him. Now, Jesus did not ever really go outside of this region. There were a couple of times that he ventured into places where Gentiles lived, like when he went to the Gadarenes or something like that, up to Caesarea Philippi, that was also a heavily Gentile area, but for the most part, he remained in Israel as he said to the Canaanite woman, I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

So this is where his earthly ministry was, yet the fame of him is spreading so far and wide that people are coming literally from distant lands to see him and to be healed by him. And he told his disciples that a boat should stand ready for him because of the crowd so that they would not crowd him, for he healed many with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around him in order to touch him.

Now, it doesn't really say here if the boat was to be used to kind of push away from the shore and he would be able to address the crowd from the boat. We've seen him do that before. Or was it that, I mean, he just needed an escape plan.

Jesus just was not gonna be able to handle the demands of a mob. They might become mob-like, pressing around him and wanting to be healed by him. So it was better for them and certainly for him and his disciples if he would get away from them and get into the boat and push away from the shore.

The Demons Know Jesus Is the Son of God

Verse 11, and whenever the unclean spirits were seeing him, they would fall down before him and cry out saying, you are the son of God. And he earnestly warned them not to tell who he was. We've seen that before in Mark as well.

Here we're just two and a half chapters in. And already the demons have made more truthful proclamations of Christ than anyone else has. I think this has come up three times thus far. There was Jesus healing the one with a demon in Mark 1 .24 who was saying, we know who you are, the Holy one of God.

And then there was another less specific account where the demons knew who he was, but he was telling them not to say anything about him. And here we have that same kind of confession again in Mark 3 .11, the evil spirits saw him.

They would fall down before him and they would cry out saying, you are the son of God. And he warns them not to tell who he was because it wasn't his time yet. To make that proclamation that he is the son of God, that was a blasphemous claim to the Hebrews if they did not believe him to be the son of God.

He's making himself equal with God. And all the Hebrews know that. They know that's what that statement means. Lest you hear from some of those skeptics out there who will say that Jesus never claimed to be God.

He never made a divine claim like that. Well, to be the son of God is to make a claim as being equal with God. It is to say that he is God. I am God and son of God are equal claims. There's no difference between them.

Even though Muslims are one religion that will try to say Jesus never made a confession to being God himself. In fact, a common argument you might hear from a Muslim is point to me in the Bible where Jesus said, I am God, worship me.

It's the, I want every word laid out this way and said in this style or else I won't believe it fallacy. That's what they do with it. But Jesus did in fact, proclaim himself to be God. The demons here are proclaiming himself to be God or proclaiming that Christ is God, but it's not yet his time to be found out in this way for which he would be accused of blasphemy and then taken to death.

That's what happens at his trial at the end of his earthly ministry. When they ask him if he is the son of God, the Christ, and he says, I am. And the high priest tears his garments incensed that Jesus has committed blasphemy in the high priest eyes.

And that's what they have him crucified for. Well, that's the reason they say he needs to be crucified. Really, as we know from what we've read here that they hated Jesus, they were jealous of him. They didn't like that the crowds were following him.

They hated that Jesus was calling out their false teaching. And so that was why they wanted to kill him because Jesus is righteous and they were not. We see Jesus' compassion for people, how he loves people, how he cares for people.

He doesn't affix himself to a rigid strict set of rules that are not even of the law of God. You know, often it is said, see Jesus would set aside the rules and out of love for people, he would break the rules sometimes.

That's not what Jesus did here. He didn't break the rule at all. Once again, as said in Matthew 5, 17, I did not come to abolish the law or the prophets, Jesus said, but I have come to fulfill them. And love is the fulfilling of the law.

He's not setting aside the law so that he can show love to people. He is fulfilling the law by loving people and following the law in the right way. The Pharisees were making up all this other stuff to make themselves righteous or to afflict the people.

Jesus was not following their rules, but he still kept the very law that he had laid down. Even in his humanity, he kept it perfectly so that he might become the righteous sacrifice for us. And all who believe in him, our sins are forgiven and we are clothed in his righteousness that we may also be obedient to God.

We're not setting aside the law. Paul says, on the contrary, we uphold the law in Romans chapter three. So we are now obedient to God in a way that is pleasing to the Lord. Previously, we could not keep the law in a way that was pleasing to God, but now in the righteousness of Christ, we are able to.

And part of keeping that law means having compassion for others, loving one another, showing charity to others. You're not gonna have the ability to heal a man's withered hand, but there is certainly charity and kindness and compassion that you can show to other people, modeled after what we saw in our savior, Jesus Christ, as he did for his own.

So we must do for one another. Let's finish there. And we'll come back to our study of Mark in chapter three next week. Heavenly father, we thank you for what we have read here today. And I pray that you would encourage our hearts that we recognize the compassion that Christ has for each and every one of us.

And I pray that with that compassion, we've been shown by you through Jesus Christ, our savior, that we would have compassion on one another, not making up our own rules, not trying to bind people to those rules, but the standard that has been set before us is in God's word.

Help us to keep that and following the standard that has been set before us in Christ. And it is in Jesus' name that we pray, amen.

Closing Announcements and Next Study

You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.

On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.