Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: Welcome to Through the Bible. We're studying the Gospel of Mark. In chapter 8, Jesus asks his disciples really an important question that could easily be asked of each of us today. Curious what it is? We'll get into it in just a minute. First, here's Dr. McGee to introduce our study.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: And I'm going to read today in this chapter beginning at verse 27. And this is that remarkable confession of faith of Simon Peter. Will you listen to it? And Jesus went out and his disciples into the towns of Caesarea Philippi. And by the way, he asked his disciples saying under them, who do men say that I am? And they answered John the Baptist, but some say Elias, and others one of the prophets. And he said under them, but whom say ye that I am? And Peter answereth and saith under him, thou art the Christ. And he charged them that they should tell no man of him.

And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders and of the chief priests and scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. And he spoke that saying openly. And Peter took him and began to rebuke him. And when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter saying, get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of man. May I say that we need to recognize that the Lord Jesus Christ today saves you by his marvelous, wonderful grace and his death upon the cross.

And these men know that he is the Christ, that is the anointed one promised in the Old Testament, the one that was coming to rule over actually the entire world, one in David's line. But they did not know that he was to die upon a cross. And Peter rebukes him for that. And then the Lord rebukes Simon Peter that that is satanic. And friends today could deny the death of Christ upon the cross then then talk about what a wonderful man he is. May I say to you that's not Bible. That's satanic.

Steve Schwetz: Let's pray. Father, open our eyes to behold the precious lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world and our sin too. We pray this in Jesus's name. Amen. We're off to Mark 8 on Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: Now friends, the eighth chapter as we come to it today, we find out that it is very similar to the last chapter as far as the length is concerned. And it carries out the great theme of Mark. The emphasis is upon action, of what the Lord Jesus did. And that was important to the Romans and it's important to us today. Is the Lord Jesus able to save to the uttermost? Can he do the job? He's the servant of Jehovah. And we find out that he can. Now in this chapter, we have the feeding of the 4,000 in the coasts of Decapolis.

And we find again the Pharisees are hounding his trail and they ask for a sign at Dalmanutha. And then the friends of a blind man asked Jesus to touch his eyes at Bethsaida. And then Peter makes his confession of faith in Caesarea Philippi. So you see if he's moving around, friends, and he didn't have a rented Hertz automobile either. And there weren't good highways in that day. He walked. And may I say that he's covering a great deal of ground. That land is a small land, but when you reduce the speed down to walking, it's a pretty good size land.

Actually, for territory, you would almost make it the size of this nation of ours when you get people down to walking. And that's what he did. Now we have here the feeding of the 4,000 that opens this section. And probably we should spend just a moment here looking at something because some feel that actually the feeding of the 4,000 is a duplication of the feeding of the 5,000 and they practically ignore it. And that's caused someone to say that the feeding of the 4,000 is the neglected miracle of Jesus. And certainly it is. Now the critic when he comes to this in his usual fashion, he seeks to rid the Bible of the supernatural.

Now his explanation of this miracle is that it was included after the feeding of the 5,000 to strengthen the claim of the apostles that Jesus was a miracle worker. Well, obviously if this were true by the way, the second miracle would be greater than the first miracle. Instead of 4,000, it would be nearly 10,000. And when men exaggerate, they are extravagant and not limited in language. In other words, exaggeration is exaggeration and not restraint. And here it's restraint by the way. And frankly, we need to make a contrast between the two miracles. Now they are strikingly similar in several features.

Well, he feeds the thousands one time it's five, the other it's four. All right, that is certainly similar. And there are seven points of dissimilarity that we need to call your attention to. Now in the first instance, that is the feeding of the 5,000, the multitude had been with the Lord one day and in the feeding of the 4,000 three days. Now upon that first occasion with the 5,000, the disciples were told to go and see what supplies were available while upon the other they were ready with the information before they were asked. And when the 5,000 were fed, there were five loaves and two fishes.

And for the 4,000, there's seven loaves and a few fishes. And again, it was near the Passover here. And the multitude was told to sit in companies upon the green grass. That's when he fed the 5,000. While in the other case, in this one here, why it's farther along in the year. The grass is no longer green and they're told to sit on the ground, literally on the earth. And in the first instance, the 5,000 our Lord is said to bless the loaves. While upon the second occasion, he said to have given thanks first for the loaves and later to have blessed the fish.

After the 5,000 were fed, 12 baskets of fragments remained, but when the 4,000 were satisfied, there were seven baskets over. And then finally the number that was fed was different in each instance. Now there is therefore a sharp contrast between the two is found therefore in the time that Jesus fed the multitudes. In the feeding of the 5,000, it was at the conclusion of the first day. Jesus had been teaching them, but according to John, he followed the feeding of the 5,000 with the discourse of the bread of life. This important discourse was sort of an after dinner speech, you see.

But in the feeding of the 4,000, the multitude had been with Jesus for three days listening to his teaching. And the physical food followed the teaching. In other words, the crowd had not come out to eat, but to hear the teaching of Jesus. And I think this is an important lesson by the way for us here. Are we using church dinners to get the crowd? If so, then our motive is wrong. Many churches can only get people out in the middle of the week to a banquet. And some Bible classes depend upon the food to draw people in for the message.

Now when folk come for the loaves and fishes, they're only rice Christians and there's no other explanation. Can God bless such efforts regardless of how pure the motive? Well, I'll let you answer it. The end does not always justify the means. Now I think there are other distinctions that are here and maybe we'll note them as we go along. Let me come now directly to the eighth chapter and begin to read with this background for him in the coasts of Decapolis. Jesus feeds the 4,000 in those days, and that of course would be in the days when he was in the area of the Decapolis, the 10 cities.

The multitude being very great, and don't miss that. Their multitudes were following him now. And having nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples under him and saith under them, I have compassion on the multitude because they have now been with me three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away fasting to their own houses, they'll faint by the way, for divers of them came from far. And his disciples answered him, from whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness? And he asked them, how many loaves have ye?

And they said seven. And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground. And he took the seven loaves and gave thanks and break and gave to his disciples and set before them. And they did set them before the people. That's something I think's quite interesting here that it looks as if the disciples had forgotten about him feeding 5,000. And I'm of the opinion that many of us have the same experience of having God do some very gracious and good thing for us. And we forgot it by the next time. And when an emergency arose, why we found ourselves neophytes.

That is it was all brand new to us. I know that's been my experience. I have to have an X-ray made of my lungs to see whether the cancer spread. And every time it's a new experience to me and I'm frightened to death. I must confess to you. So I really have a fellow feeling for these disciples. Now they had made an inventory of the crowd though. And I think they were expecting maybe Jesus to repeat the miracle of the 5,000. There were more loaves this time for fewer people, but it was still true. What are these among so many?

And who had the loaves this time? We don't know. Some unknown person did. And maybe he just didn't want us to know that he was there. Someday he'll get his reward. Now in this instance, they sat on the bare ground, you'll notice. That's what we're told here. And he commanded the people to sit down on the ground before it was the grass. Think that's interesting to note that. And how many fish? Well, we're told here they had a few small fish. What difference does it make? The numbers aren't important. And he's not counting fish. There's always a surplus you'll notice when God's in it, whether it's the 5,000 or the 4,000.

And he doesn't give them just a snack, but he gives them a seven course dinner. And if you added one woman and a child to the number, and I think you should, then you can see that you would have about 12,000 here. Now we notice here in verse 10 and straight way he entered into a ship with his disciples and he came into the parts of Dalmanutha. Now the location of Dalmanutha cannot be ascertained accurately. Apparently it is on the coast of the Sea of Galilee. And they had to cross the sea to get to it, which means they came to the west side.

And they went by boat and evidently was somewhere on the northwest coast. And you notice here the Pharisees came forth. These bloodhounds of hate were on his trail. And they began to question with him seeking of him a sign from heaven tempting him. And he sighed deeply in his spirit and saith, why doth this generation seek after a sign? Verily I say unto you, there shall no sign be given under this generation. And apparently they approached him on this subject several times. And he left them and entered into the ship again departing 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 you remember here in verse 15 he said take heed beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. And they reasoned among themselves saying it's because they have no bread. Our Lord had to clear that up for them. He said I'm talking about the teaching. And you see leaven is used for wrong and evil teaching in scripture. It's never used for the gospel. That's one of the fallacious things that's said today that somehow another that leaven represents the gospel in the parable where our Lord said the woman took three measures of meal.

Now there's the gospel, but in it was hidden here the leaven. And leaven shouldn't have been in it. It is a process of making something taste good to the natural man. Actually, what is liberalism? It all came into existence by the pulpit trying to please the unsaved church member. And today we have a lot of men that try to please the congregation even when they're unsaved. And that, may I say, is putting leaven in because the only kind of bread they're going to eat is that which is leaven. Leaven makes bread taste good. I was brought up on hot biscuits, friends.

I know they're good. And the natural man likes that. And I don't care for unleavened bread. But the word of God, that is the real unleavened bread. I must say I like it. And then the evil is the leaven that's put in it. And that's the thing that he's doing here. And he warns them and he tells them that they are to be beware of this. Don't have your heart hardened. Have it open to the gospel. And he says to them in verse 18, having eyes, see ye not? Having ears, hear ye not? And do ye not remember?

And I've been a preacher a long time, friends. And sometimes I discover something that startles me that some person that you think knows spiritual truth, they miss the entire thought. They don't get it at all. You wonder where they've been. And there are people that have been studying the Bible for years that are like that. And remember these men were apostles. And he then tells them, when I break the five loaves among 5,000, how many baskets full of fragments took you up? They send him 12. And when the seven among the four, how many baskets?

And they say seven. He said under them, how is it that you do not understand that the word of God is the bread of life? And the word of God reveals him. And so it means to feed on him and to beware of leaven. I think that ought to be clear to us here in the teaching that he gives. Now we have this wonderful incident down here at verse 22. And I think that we've gone about as far in this matter of the feeding of the 4,000. And very frankly, we are becoming back to the feeding of the 5,000 again in Luke and then again in John.

And so we're going into a great deal of detail at that time. Now in verse 22, he cometh to Bethsaida. And they bring a blind man under him and besought him to touch him. And notice now this incident here of the blind man. And this is another one of these remarkable instances here. You see he ascended to the request but touching his eye. But observe that Jesus led him out of town had Bethsaida where many of his mighty works had been before become like Nazareth where he no longer could perform mighty works. Now our Lord uses a peculiar method here.

And there's actually no medicinal value in saliva, but it is to increase the faith of this man. And I think there's a great spiritual truth here. And let me read this and then let's look at the spiritual truth. And I read it. He took the blind man by the hand, led him out of town. And when he had spit on his eyes and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw. And he looked up and said, I see men as trees walking. After that, he put his hands again upon his eyes, made him look up.

And he was restored and saw every man clearly. And he sent him away to his house saying, neither go into the town nor tell it to any in the town. You see this place Bethsaida already has judgment pronounced upon it. Now there's something here that we need to look at very carefully. First of all, the question arises, why did he use this method? Couldn't he have opened the eyes of this man as he did in other instances? Yes, he could have. And he could have made the man see clearly at the very beginning. Why didn't he?

Well, there's a lesson for the man, but there's a lesson here for us. Now there are three stages in this case. Notice them. First, blindness. Now we are first spiritually blind like the blind man. We can say once I was blind, but now I can see. Now you'll notice here he had partial sight. And only Mark tells us this. Then Mark is the one of the miracles. Why would he give this? Is this not our condition today? Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. And I don't care who you are or where you are.

Every now and then I get a letter from some person who gives me to understand that they have great spiritual discernment and that they are way up there with the upper 10. I don't know why they seem to think I belong there, but I have a confession to make to you. I only see through a glass darkly. There are so many things I don't understand. And I think that that's where we all are today. Now I think some people don't realize that. They feel like my I know all of the things that you're to know.

Well, that's one of the curses of some of our fundamental churches. I have been pastor of a church for a great many years. I have members that never bothered to come to Bible study. And you know why, friends? They already know more than I know. And I'm not sure maybe they do know. But the thing that's tragic about them is that they think they know when they really don't know. And they do not realize that. Socrates in his day made this statement. He said that he was the wisest of the Athenians. And that shocked everybody because he was a very humble man.

And they asked him what he meant. Well, he said, you know that there are great many of the Athenians that think they know. And I know I do not know. And since I know that I do not know, I'm the wisest of the Athenians. May I say to you, a lot of the saints today think they know, but there is this state where we are today. And Paul could say, now we see through a glass darkly. But then face to face. I'll sure be glad when I get over there where I'm going to know something.

Now perfect sight is the third stage. We'll get our 2020 spiritual vision when we get in his presence. And that's when we're going to really be able to see. And you'll notice our Lord healed this man know perfectly when he had finished. And there is something here that I don't have time today to develop. But have you ever noticed the different methods that he used in opening eyes of the blind? In one of the instances, that blind man here at Bethsaida, Jesus touched his eyes and this man had an experience. And I imagine that he organized the Metharene church.

And they sang the touch of his hand on mine. And then blind Bartimaeus, you remember Jesus didn't touch him at all. He just told him from a distance. Faith alone opened his eyes. And I suppose he organized the congregatarian church. And they sang of course only believe. Now the man born blind was told to go and wash in the pool of Siloam. And that's an entirely different method according to John 9. And this man probably he organized the Siloam Baptian church. And they sang, shall we gather at the river? You say that's absurd. It sure is absurd for that day, but today they're sure doing the same thing.

May I say to you what a lesson is here. Now we have Peter 's confession of faith. I dwelt on that with a great deal of detail back yonder in the Gospel of Matthew. And I do not want to repeat too much. But will you notice the important thing here is who is Jesus? Who is he? What think you of Christ is the test. To try both your state and your scheme, you cannot be right in the rest unless you think rightly of him. And friends, to be united to him, joined to him is the important thing and to enjoy a right relationship with Jesus Christ.

Now I think the finest thing Simon Peter ever did was when he said, thou art the Christ. You're the Christ, the son of the living God. Matthew, you see, gives the full account. Now we have here the thing that our Lord deals with at verse 34. When you call the people under him with his disciples also, he said under them, whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. And whosoever will save his life shall lose it. But whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's the same shall save it.

For what shall it profit a man? He shall gain the whole world, lose his own soul. Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him also shall the son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his father with his holy angels. This is a wonderful passage of scripture that we have here. The Lord Jesus did not reveal his person apart from his work of redemption. You'll always notice that back in verse 31 he had said, when they recognized him, the son of man must suffer many things, be rejected of the elders and the chief priests, be killed and after three days rise again.

Now he puts here not a condition of salvation, but it's the position of those that are saved that he's talking about. Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me. What kind of a Christian are you today? Are you the one that acknowledges him and serve him and attempt to glorify him? My friend, that is all important in these days in which we live. So until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

Steve Schwetz: If you want some resources that'll strengthen and encourage you, be sure to get our app or visit ttb.org. You can also give us a call at 1-800-65 Bible or email us anytime at biblebus at ttb.org. We're going to continue to follow in Jesus's steps through the Gospel of Mark next time, so join us. And if you can, read chapter 9 ahead of time to get your head and heart ready for it. I'm Steve Schwetz, and I'll meet you back here next time.

Guest (Male): Through the Bible is a five year study of God's entire word. And together we discover God's purposes in history and our lives found only when we believe in Jesus Christ. Do you know him yet?