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Withered Hand Restored

November 07, 2007

Bob Bradley

_________________________ 

 

Mark 3:1-12

 

1 And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand.

2 And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him.

3 And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth.

4 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.

5 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.

6 And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.

7 But Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea: and a great multitude from Galilee followed him, and from Judaea,

8 And from Jerusalem, and from Idumaea, and from beyond Jordan; and they about Tyre and Sidon, a great multitude, when they had heard what great things he did, came unto him.

9 And he spake to his disciples, that a small ship should wait on him because of the multitude, lest they should throng him.

10 For he had healed many; insomuch that they pressed upon him for to touch him, as many as had plagues.

11 And unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God.

12 And he straitly charged them that they should not make him known.

 

 

As we talked about last week, Jesus is several months into His ministry.  As He is proceeding in His ministry, He is teaching and preaching in many different towns.  He is going into the synagogues teaching and doing some great things there.  As He continues to proceed on in His ministry, as He does great things, teaching, preaching, and healing; [the Pharisees, religious leaders] opposition against Him continues to grow. 

 

We studied last Wednesday night about upset they got because of what He did on a Sabbath day.  Remember, He told them that the Sabbath day was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.  They were upset because of what He was doing.  They were walking in the cornfields, they reached over, got some grain and rubbed it in their hands, and they were eating it.  They got so upset at His disciples that they were saying that because they were rubbing the grain that they were working on the Sabbath day and they were breaking the law.  As we have said, the religious crowd; the Pharisees, the scribes, the Sadducees; they differed on some things that they believed.  As the opposition grew against Jesus the crowd got bigger, or the opposition got bigger. 

 

Keep in mind, as I read in the first verse:

 

1 And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand.

 

When you read this in the book of Luke chapter six, you will find out that this another Sabbath day, not the Sabbath day that we had just talked about last week where we ended up here in chapter two with, but it is another Sabbath day that He enters into the synagogue.  The Bible tells us...  Remember what a synagogue is.  A synagogue was not a place of sacrifice that was the temple.  A synagogue was where you would go to and they had a minister there or someone who oversaw the synagogue and they would get someone, or someone would read from the scriptures, someone would teach, or someone would talk about or expound the scriptures and it was a place of worship, not a place of sacrifice. 

 

Here He is on another Sabbath day and He is going to synagogue.  Saturday is the Sabbath day.  We have no claim on the Sabbath day.  The church of Jesus Christ, He never gave us the Sabbath day.  He gave us a day here when He arose from the dead and that is Sunday.  That is the first day of the week.  The Sabbath day is the seventh day.  We know that He gave that day unto the Jewish people, unto the nation of Israel very special day for them.  We know that God gave them some things that they could not do on the Sabbath day.  They were not allowed to work.  They were not allowed to build a fire, cook and different things.  They could not do on the Sabbath day according to what God gave in the law. 

 

However, as time proceeded here forward and a couple of thousand years pass, we know that the religious crowd continually added on to what God said.  They had made the Sabbath day, to become a tremendous burden on people because it got to the place now that you could hardly do anything.  You were breaking their tradition.  Not because of what God said, but because of what they said that God had said.  That is an altogether different story.  I have heard people say that God says this, well just because I say that God says something that don't mean that God said it.  Many people gets behind the pulpit and says God says this or God told me to say that.  That is not always the case.  We have many con artists, hypocrites, wolves in sheep’s clothing and we have to be very careful.

 

Here they are again on another Sabbath day and He is going to do something great.  There is a man in the synagogue whose right hand is withered.  When you read Luke's gospel, it will tell you.  He has a right hand that is withered.  When you read this in the original, it will bring out some ideas that if what I read is truth that this guy was not born this way.  He had either some kind of a disease or some kind of an accident that had his hand to whither or the problem that he had with his hand, he was not born that way.  I think that is significant, but we will not get in that tonight.

 

Here he is in the synagogue.  Jesus is in the synagogue.  If we look at His life about His worship and about His prayer life, He could teach us some things.  It was His habit or custom that He went to the synagogue.  It just was not something to pass time, but He went there as a place of worship.  Now there is a guy there who had a withered hand.  The Bible says in verse two

 

2 And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him.

 

When you look at the word "watched", it is a word that when you look at it for a while it brings out the idea that they were "spying."  In other words, they just did not take a glancing look at what was going on, but they were actually spying on Him.  They were dogging Him to see what Jesus was going to do.  The Pharisees were not in the synagogue to learn or to worship God.  They were there to find fault.  They were there to try to do something to see Jesus do something so that they could trap Him and get Him where they could accuse Him or condemn Him and to try get Him to a place where they could ruin His reputation.  I want you to remember something about that.  There are forces all around us that if we are not very careful; it may be a word of our tongue, it may be something that we lay our hands to, it may something that we may participate in, but if we are not very careful we can do something, just one thing that can ruin our reputation.  We may have a great reputation, but can use our mouths to ruin that in a minute.  I have seen people do that. 

 

The Bible says:

 

2 And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him.

 

Here they are spying on Him.  They spied on Him so that they might be able to see Him do something that broke their tradition so that they might accuse Him.

 

3 And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth.

 

I don't know how many were in the synagogue.  If you read the context here, the place was probably packed.  There were probably people standing on the outside that could not get in.  There were people everywhere because of the opposition that had grown because of what Jesus was doing.  People were everywhere.  Jesus knew what they were doing.  He looks at the guy that has the right hand that is withered.  He said, "Come here."  Or "Stand forth."  In other words, when you read that it is saying that He is putting him right in the middle of all of them.  In other words, He is putting him in the middle of this whole congregation so they can see what He is about to do.  Isn't it great when Jesus does something that He is not ashamed of it?  Isn't it great when He does something that He does things that people can see what He does.  He doesn't slip around and do anything like many of us do.  Jesus when He does something, He wants people to see what He does. 

 

He says, "Come here and Stand forth."  If I would have been this guy, he could have been embarrassed.  He could have been a little bit shy.  He could have been intimidated by all the religious crowd because I'm sure that this guy has heard all the things that has been murmured and said about what Jesus was doing.

 

4  And he saith unto them...

 

In other words, here is the guy with the withered hand standing in the middle of all of them.  Here he is with the withered hand.  I'm sure his hand is very evident, that you could see what was wrong with him.  Jesus tells him to stand forth and He brings him up and looks at the whole crowd and says:

 

4 ...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.

 

He is saying, since there is evil all around us--and there was.  Even though it was a Sabbath day, there was evil going on everywhere.  Just because it becomes Sunday for us, that does not mean that the world stops sinning for us.  Here on the Sabbath day, Jesus said, "Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath day, or to do evil?"  When you look at that, He is saying since there is evil going on the Sabbath day should we also do good?  Not only did He say that but He said since people are dying on the Sabbath day shouldn't we save life.  Do you see what He is doing here?  He is trying to get them to think about what they are doing and what He is about to do.  It is very easy for us to look at one side of the situation all the time.  It is very easy to look from our point of view, especially this time of year when election is going on. 

 

We can look at our point of view and we are the only ones that are right.  These other guys don't know anything.  You can go talk to somebody else that is on the other side of the fence and they think that they are 100% right.  Well, somebody is wrong somewhere because not everybody can be right.  We get very defensive of our viewpoint sometimes. 

 

Here these guys are, and Jesus puts him in the midst and says, "Is it lawful to do good or to do evil; or to save life or to kill?"  Which one is it?  Give me an answer.  Tell me what you think.  The Bible says that they held their peace.  They knew if they said, "Well it is not lawful to do good on the Sabbath day." then it was going to show them how hypocritical they really were.  Also, they could not say that is okay to do evil on the Sabbath day because they were religious people.  They were the same crowd that was going to kill Him here shortly, but they were religious.  There is a big difference between being religious and being saved.  There is a big difference between a church member and a Christian.  We can be both.  We can be a Christian and a church member, but we have many church members that are not Christians.  They held their peace.

 

5 And when he had looked round about on them with anger...

 

Now He looks at them.  They wouldn't say it is okay to do good.  They wouldn't say that is okay to save life.  They wouldn't say a word.   He looks on them.  He looks at the whole crowd.  The Bible says that He looks upon them with anger.  When we look at that, we say that surely Jesus didn't get upset.  Surely, Jesus didn't get angry.  Surely, Jesus wouldn't allow an emotion of anger to arise within Him.  We think that don't we.  Look at what He is angry about.  He is not angry because someone cut His camel off in traffic.  He is not angry about that.  He is not angry because someone ate the last biscuit or the line.  He is not angry about that.  Do you know why He was upset?  When He looked around and saw the self-righteousness of these folks sitting there, that angered Him.  When He saw them holding onto their tradition--when they looked at what their tradition said, they looked at that being more important than curing a guy’s hand that had been crippled.  They looked at that as being more important than saving life.  That is how self-righteous they got.  In our church society today, there are still yet people like that.  They are very self-righteous.  If people need help and they are hungry, they don't care what day it is.  If they are hungry then they are hungry.  We use some things sometimes to our advantage so that we don't have to do some things sometimes.  However, you will never find anywhere at anytime where Jesus Christ ever turned anyone away that had a need.  It didn't matter what day it was.  He was angry.

 

Our Bible tells us a lot about being angry and sin not.  I was talking to someone this week and in talking to them and seeing their self-righteousness how that they were in a state that they thought they didn't need nothing to do with God, nothing to do with church, nothing to do with anything like that.  I got upset on the inside.  I didn't say a thing to this individual but I gathered up my stuff and I moved on.  Why?  Because there was nothing that I could do there for this individual.  They thought that they did not need to hear about Jesus Christ.  They thought that they were good enough. 

 

This crowd, when He looks around and sees their self-righteousness, it upset Him.  He didn't go running His mouth as we do when we get upset sometimes.  I have heard people say that they just had to give them a piece of their mind.  They were mad.  You need to repent when you do that.  As we grow and mature, our temper is something that we can get under control more and more each day.  We can do that if we want to.  Have you ever lost your temper?  Have you ever done things that you shouldn't do?  Absolutely, but it has been a long time ago.  There have been times that we have done a lot of stupid stuff and you have too.  However, as we mature in our Christian life, we should get to the place that we can keep our temper under control. 

 

The Bible says:

 

5 ...being grieved for the hardness of their hearts...

 

You see what was upsetting them so much is how hard that their heart was.  When you read that and you look up that word, it means that their hearts were calloused.  Used to I had to work all the time using sledgehammers and things like that and my hands would be calloused.  They would get sore sometimes where there would be big old callouses but I would get out a knife and cut off the callouses but that did not hurt a bit because I did not have any feeling in them.  Jesus is saying that their hearts are just like a callous that you get on your hands or on your feet.  It has no feeling in it whatsoever.  Isn't it sad when people's hearts get that hard?  They have no feeling in it whatsoever.  The Bible says that He was being grieved for the hardness of their hearts...  Their hearts were so calloused...  Do you know what self-righteousness does?  It calluses us.  It makes our heart get hard.  When we are self-righteous when we think that we don't need anything from anybody, we have been on the way long enough and nobody is going to tell us nothing.  Our hearts gets hard.  Nobody tells you anything because you don't listen enough.  That gets evident in your life many times.  All of us need instruction.  You may not need it from me, but you need instruction.

 

The Bible says:

 

5  he saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other.

 

We are going to find out next week what happened here as we look on down through here.  He just simply stretches his hand out.  It is just as whole as the other is.   If you had a withered hand, or...if you had a total stranger come in here that had a withered hand.  His head was all bowed and bent and God would heal him then we should be having a hallelujah time.  However, that didn't happen here because of people's hard hearts.  When you see people repent and don't make your heart rejoice then I worry about you.  When we see God do great things in peoples lives and it doesn't bring great joy to your heart then I worry about you.  When people are in drastic need and that does not touch your heart then I worry about you.  If we have no kindness or compassion and someone is blessed or God does, something great for someone it doesn't bring joy to us then our hearts are not right with God somewhere.  Something bad wrong somewhere.

 

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